HAJI AHMED HAJI IBRAHIM Vs. HADU SUBUDHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner is the landlord and the Opposite Party No. 1 is the tenant. The petitioner's case as mentioned in the application for eviction may be stated in short. The disputed house consists of a room abutting the main road. Just adjacent to it there are two other rooms. The three rooms are in the front of the main business premises of the petitioner. These three rooms located side by side had been rented out by the petitioner long back at a time when they were not considered necessary for business purposes. The petitioner originally constituted a partnership firm. Recently it has been reconstituted by separate allocation of business. Haji Ahmed Ibrahim, one of the partners, got the business of the firm at berhampur to his share. The volume and turnover of the business considerably increased in recent years with consequential expansion of the staff and the records. The petitioner has agencies of several standard commodities and articles, one of them being the agency of cloths of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills. The said Mills insisted upon having a show-room where different varieties of stocks are to be exhibited for publicity. In the absence of a show-room the petitioner had apprehension that the agency with the Mills may be cancelled. The petitioner had also to provide space for accommodation of the increased staff and records. Out of the three rooms in the front, opposite party No. 1 is in occupation of the western room and the eastern room is in possession of one Harimohan Sahu as a tenant to evict whom an application had been filed before the House-rent Controller out of which O. J. C. No. 828 of 1970 arises. The room is necessary for convenient management of business in its entirety. The petitioner wanted to remodel the room by amalgamating it with other available space of the main portion so that the entire area may be available for business. With this end in view the petitioner had filed H. R. C. Case No. 14 of 1961 which was ultimately dismissed. The present application has been filed as the petitioner is in difficulty in improving his business without obtaining possession of the room. In the written statement filed by opposite party No. 1 the averments in the application for eviction were denied. By his order (Annexure 1) dated 13-3-1970 the House-rent Controller dismissed the application for eviction. The petitioner filed an appeal and the Additional district Magistrate (Judicial) by his order (Annexure 2) dated 14-5-1970 dismissed the same. The writ application has been filed under Articles 226 and 227 of the constitution for issuing a writ of certiorari to quash Annexure 2.

(2.) ON behalf of the petitioner Mr. Rath contends that the concurrent finding of fact of both the authorities that the room was not required in good faith for the business of the petitioner is liable to be quashed on account of an error of law apparent on the face of the record. The error of law consists in the fact that the conclusion of the A. D. M. (J) is in disregard of the correct construction of Section 7 (2) of the Orissa House Rent Control Act, 1958 (hereinafter to be referred to as the Act) and the said conclusion can be corrected by a writ of certiorari. Mr. Patnaik for opposite party No. 1, on the other hand, contends that the High court has no jurisdiction to issue a writ of certiorari to quash a pure finding of fact which is based on evidence. Both the contentions require careful examination.

(3.) THE following questions arise for consideration. (i) Is the concurrent finding that the petitioner does not require the room in good faith for his occupation a pure finding of fact? (ii) Can the High Court in exercise of its jurisdiction under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution quash such a finding if it has been arrived at in disregard of the relevant statutory provision?