SUKUMAR Vs. RATAN KUMARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a revision under section 23 -E of the Madhya Pradesh Accommodation Control Act, 1961 (Act for short), Rent Controlling Authority, Indore (R.C.A. for short) has ordered eviction of the applicant/tenant from a shop in Grain Mandi, Sanyogitaganj, Indore on the ground that Smt. Ratan Kumari (NA -1) bona fide requires the same to start her own business of sale, purchase and storage of grains and she has no other reasonably suitable accommodation within the city of Indore for the purpose.

(2.) EXISTENCE of relationship of landlord and tenant is not disputed. All three sons of Smt. Ratan Kumari (NA -1) have been joined in the application. Disputed shop was let out to the applicant in 1984 and in such shop he is carrying on his grain business. Previously a civil suit No. 862/1994 was filed by Murlidhar, the husband of Smt. Ratan Kumari (NA -1) for eviction of the applicant on the ground of his own personal requirement to start grain business. Such a civil suit was got dismissed after death of husband of Smt. Ratan Kumari (NA -1).

(3.) 1991 MPLJ 426 to support his arguments with mere assertion or expression of desire or fancy by the landlord is insufficient to prove the requirement. Such desire must be honest and bona fide. The Court has to objectively determine the truth of the assertion and its bona fide. Mere expression of whim or fancy by the landlord is insufficient. The same must be an outcome of sincere and honest desire, in contradistinction to a mere pretence. In the words of Apex Court itself in Ram Dass v. Ishwar Chander cited (supra) at page 1424 of AIR 1988 SC 1422 : - But the essential idea basic to all such cases is that the need of the landlord should be genuine and honest, conceived in good faith; and that, further, the Court must also consider it reasonable to gratify that need. Landlord's desire for possession, however, honest it might otherwise be, has inevitably a subjective element in it and that, that desire to become a "requirement" in law must have the objective element of a "need". It must also be such that the Court considers it reasonable and, therefore, eligible to be gratified. In doing so, the Court must take all relevant circumstances into consideration so that the protection afforded by law to the tenant is not rendered merely illusory or whittled down. Certainly, this concept of bona fide requirement has become well settled from a long catena of decision from various High Courts and the Apex Court.