AJIT KUMAR Vs. RAMESHWAR PRASAD SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE five revision applications have been heard together since they all arise out of a single judgment disposing of the five suits filed by the opposite party for the eviction of the petitioners under Section 14 of the Bihar Building (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1983 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act').

(2.) IT is claimed in the petition that the petitioners are tenants in the holding in dispute in five separate Kutras having been indeed by the vendor of the plaintiff, admittedly, quite some time ago. IT is not disputed that the plaintiff is the vendee of one Alakh Bihari Lal, one of the co-sharers of the entire premises which constitute an old ancestral house and the disputed premises within a boundary. The purchase was made in the year 1977. The suit was filed under Section 14 of the Act on the solitary ground of personal necessity. As stated in the plaint, the personal necessity is firstly that the plaintiff having retired from the post of Superintending Engineer, is now in poor health living in his village and now needs to reside in Patna instead of his village home in order to avail medical facilities and also in order to provide suitable employment for his two unemployed sons who are no majors and finally for setting up a chemist shop alongwith his son-in-law who is an M.B. D.S., as a partner for the aggrandizement of his own income which has become meager on his retirement.

(3.) TO me, the most important point that needs to be determined is the first point because if the defendants are really settles of the land only and not the tenants inducted in the premises of the constructions on them, then there is no manner of doubt that the provisions of the Act will not apply. The materials available on the record on this point are Exhibits -'A',-'B' and 'H'. Exhibit-A is a notice sent under Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act issued by one Binod Behari Lal, Bar-at-Law, who is not a vendor of the plaintiff-opposite-party to Puran Mistry (petitioner in CR 746/89) stating that he has terminated his tenancy as being described as tenancy-at-will, significantly, as having taken the land on rent and having constructed temporary structures on them. This notice was sent to one of the tenants, Exhibit-B series are the rent receipts indicating payment of rent to the landlord, Exhibit-B is the plaint of a suit being Title Suit No. 101 of 1978 filed by the co-sharer of the vendor of the plaintiff seeking a declaration that no title has been conveyed to the plaintiff by virtue of the sale made to him by the vendor. On the basis of these exhibits and the sale deed (Exhibit-3) executed on 21.10.1977 by Alakh Bihari Lal and others in favour of the plaintiff, in which it is not mentioned that there are any structure or any tenants on the land demised, it is submitted that the petitioners cannot be treated to be tenants within the meaning of the Act.