NATHILAL Vs. R G MOGHE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Plaintiff filed a suit for eviction of his tenant, alleging that he was an old man of 64 years, that he was having on the fourth storey of his house, that his wife was asthmatic and that for these reasons, he was in genuine need of moving to the second storey of the house in order to have greater convenience. The Defendant resisted the suit on the ground that the requirement of the Plaintiff was not genuine, because the Plaintiff had rented some portions of the house to other persons after his illness. The trial Court held that the accommodation was not genuinely required by the Plaintiff and dismissed the suit. On appeal, the Additional District Judge, Shivpuri, held that he believed that the Plaintiff-landlord genuinely required the suit accomodation for himself and that the lower Court was uncharitable in questioning the requirement of the landlord; But dismissed the appeal on the ground that according to Section 4 (g) of the M. P. Accomodation Control Act (Act No. 23 of 1955), a landlord can only "claim back residential accommodation in case he had no other accommodation of his own in the city" and that when the landlord is in occupation of the fourth storey, he cannot ask a tenant, living in the second storey to be evicted. Against this decision the Plaintiff has filed this Second appeal.

(2.) The short question for decision in this case is whether a landlord who is living in upper storey can ask his tenant living in the lower storey to vacate it on the ground that he is an old man and that he required the accomodation for his own use.

(3.) I am happily relieved of the (sic) to consider this question because my learned brother Dixit J. (as he then was)in Motilal v. Badrilal,1954 MPLJ 274 has considered a similar proposition. In para 10 of the Judgment, he has elaborately discussed the proposition and considered all the implication of Section 4 (g) of the M. B. Accomodation Control Act, I can do no better than quote his actual words-