1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH AT NAGPUR Writ Petition No. 4617 of 2011 Abdul Rashid Shaikh Hasan. ..VS.. Mohd. Iqbal and others. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, Court's or Judge's orders appearances, Court's orders of directions and Registrar's orders - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mr. P.A. Abhyankari, Adv. for the petitioner. CORAM : SMT. VASANTI A. NAIK J. DATE : 19 th September, 2011. Heard. Both the courts have concurrently held that the petitioner/tenant was liable to be evicted from the suit property under section 16(1)(g) of the Maharashtra Rent Control Act. A concurrent finding of facts has been recorded by both the courts that since there were several members in the family of the respondent landlord and the respondent landlord was staying with his father-in-law, the landlord bonafide required the suit premises for residence of his family. The court also held that the comparative hardship which would be caused to the landlord would be greater than that of the tenant. The findings recorded by both the courts are pure findings of facts based on a proper appreciation of the evidence on record and do not call for interference in exercise of the writ jurisdiction. The submission made on behalf of the petitioner that the fact that after the purchase of the property by the landlord in the year 2008, he had initially issued a notice to the petitioner for payment of 2 rent and then within a period of four months has filed the present proceedings, itself showed that the landlord did not require the suit premises for his bonafide occupation is misplaced. Merely because a notice was issued by the landlord four months earlier asking the tenant to pay the rent and for attornment of tenancy, it cannot be said that the landlord did not require the premises for the bonafide occupation. The judgment reported in AIR 2005 SC 578 (Indrasen Jain Vs. Rameshwardas) and relied on by the counsel for the petitioner cannot be made applicable to the facts of this case. The other submission made on behalf of the petitioner that the suit property was valued at more than Rs.3,00,000/- and only a sum of Rs.1.50,000/- was paid by the landlord to the original owner and this shows that the transaction of sale of the property took place for a lesser consideration is also liable to be rejected as it appears from the reading of the evidence of the parties that the landlord was closely related to the original vendor. Though it is submitted on behalf of the petitioner that the landlord purchased the suit property in spite of the knowledge of the fact that it was a tenanted property and was under litigation and hence the claim of the landlord ought to have been dismissed, is also not well founded and is liable to be rejected as a landlord may purchase a tenanted property with a view to reside in the same after eviction of the tenants. The courts rightly held that this was not a title suit and the issue whether the house was sold for a price below the market value could not have been considered in the suit for eviction, specially when there was evidence on record to show that the landlord purchased the suit property for valueable consideration and the property may have been sold for a value lesser than the market value as the same was tenanted. The judgments reported in AIR 1982 S.C. 1213 (Devi Das Vs. Mohan Lal) and AIR 3 1999 SC 2507 (Shiv Sarup Gupta Vs. Dr. Mahesh Chand Gupta) and relied on by the learned counsel for the petitioner cannot be made applicable to the facts of this case. In the result, the writ petition fails and is dismissed with no order as to costs. Steno copy is granted. JUDGE Hirekhan