IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA C.R. No.549 of 2008 BHAGWAT PRASAD Versus SHANTI DEVI & ORS ----------- 6 24.7.2008 Heard Counsel for the parties. The defendant-tenant-Respondents is the petitioner before this Court in this civil revision application. A suit for eviction on the ground of personal necessity filed by the plaintiff opposite party having been dismissed by judgment and order dated 17.5.2005, the same was assailed in appeal which has been allowed by the impugned judgment dated 12.12.2007 reversing the judgment of trial court .by directing for eviction of the defendant petitioner. Mr. Ajit Kumar, counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner, raises a very short submissions that when the Trial Court had dismissed the suit by recording findings based on evidence holding that there was no personal necessity, the court below had given reasons in as many as in six paragraphs with different findings and the Lower Appellate Court while reversing the aforementioned judgment did not say a word about those findings. He in fact would refer to paragraph no.9 onwards to submit that in the entire finding portion, the only line mentioned by the Appellate Court by way of its reasoning is “I am of the view that the trial court fell into patent error”. Mr. Ajit Kumar, counsel for the petitioner therefore submits that there may be good reasons or bad reasons for 2 dismissing the suit even by the Trial Court but once they were sought to be reversed by the Appellate Court it was the duty of the appellate Court to at least give reason and records its findings before reversing them. In this connection he refers to a judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Santosh Hazari Vs. Purushottam Tiwari reported in AIR 2001 SC 965. On the other hand, Mr. Sidheshwari Prasad Singh, Learned Senior Advocate assisted by Mr. Jashwir Singh Arora, Advocate would submit that the judgment of the appellate Court has to be read as a whole and in fact from paragraph no.2 onwards, it would appear that the Appellate Court had applied its mind to the findings recorded by the Trial Court. It was further submitted that when it was almost a concluded question in law that a tenant cannot dictate the landlord for choosing the premises for eviction, the appellate court was not required to indulge in the exercise of whole scanning of evidence or the recording findings in this regard while reversing the judgment of the Trial Court. It was finally submitted that at least from paragraph no.11 onwards of the impugned judgment it would found that the issues raised before the Trial Court were in fact also taken into consideration by the Appellate Court while reversing the judgment of the trial court. Having given anxious consideration, This Court is not in a position to accept the submission of the learned Counsel for the opposite parties. It would appear from the judgment of the Trial Court that after discussing the cases of the respective parties 3 in it had examined all the issues framed in the suit in the light of the evidence both oral and documentary on record before recording its findings on the crucial issue, the issue no.3 “Have the plaintiffs personal necessity reasonably and in good faith? From the detailed discussions in paragraph no.12 onwards in the judgment of the trial court, it would be found that the Court had gone to hold that : - (a) the story set out in the plaint of requirement of the premises for personal business purposes in fact was not correct because a new story of demolishing the same for erecting a new premises had also been sought to be introduced. Thereafter the Trial Court in paragraph no.14 of the judgment had further recorded a finding that (b) there was availability of premises to the plaintiff- landlord in their ancestoral residential house and that on the basis of certain admission of the plaintiff, it could not be said that such residential house was only for accommodation which by itself would go to show that there was a definite consideration with the availability of the premises of the plaintiff-landlord. (c) the plaintiffs were engaged in their own business in the ground floor of the ancestoral residential house and that there was no documentary evidence to prove that the sons of the plaintiff are 4 doing Kirana business in the ground floor of their ancestral residential house. (d) the evidence on record clearly went to show that there was a premises available to the plaintiff which was an appropriate place for business and accordingly, the plea of the plaintiff that their grandsons wanted to do business was also in a way answered by holding that there was sufficient space available in the house of the plaintiff for carrying out the business by the grandsons. (e) There was avibility of yet another premises for the plaintiffs apart from a residential house at Dalhatta, and that the plaintiffs were also having vacant land of 1 1/2 katha land in Mohalla Nagala, (f) the plea of plaintiffs’ bonafide personal necessity of suit premises for residential accommodation was itself false and that the house over plaintiffs’ land at Nagala could fulfill their personal necessity . It is really unfortunate that such exhaustive findings of the trial court backed by the cogent reasons on the basis of evidence on record while dismissing the eviction suit of the plaintiffs was sought to be reversed by the appellate court in one sentence i.e. “I am of the view that the trial court fell in to patent error.” Thus in view of the fact that reasoning given by the Trial Court has not at all been considered and met by the Appellate 5 Court while reversing the judgment and decree passed by the Trial Court in favour of defendant tenant petitioner, it must be held that the impugned judgment cannot be sustained in keeping with the ratio of the judgment of Apex Court in the case of Santosh Hazari (supra). This Court is thus constrained to hold that the impugned judgment and decree of the lower appellate court is wholly perverse and out and out illegal apart from its being totally vitiated by both material irregularity and jurisdictional error. Faced with this situation the counsel for the plaintiff landlord opposite party submits that the matter may be remitted back to the lower appellate court with a direction to dispose of the appeal expeditiously. In the result this Civil revision application is allowed and both the impugned judgment and decree if the lower appellate court are set aside with a direction to the lower appellate court to decide the appeal afresh within a period of six months from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order. There would be however no order as to costs. Rsh (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)