Case: M/s. Misrilal Parasmal Vs. H.P. Sadasiviah &amp; Another

1. The respondents are the landlords of a house situate on Mamulpet Road, Bangalore in a portion of which the appellant firm is running a cloth shop as a tenant. That house bears three Nos. 135, 136 and 120. The portions numbered 135 and 136 are entirely in its possession. In so far as the portion No. 120 is concerned, it is admittedly in a dilapidated condition, and the appellant is in possession of only one room therein. The respondents made an application in the court of the First Munsiff at Bangalore under S. 8(2) (ix) and (xii) of the Mysore House Rent and Accommodation Control Act 1951 (hereafter referred to as the Act) for the eviction of the appellant on the ground that the house was reasonably and bona fide required by them for carrying out the reconstruction which cannot be carried out without the house being vacated and also upon the ground that the appellant has alternative accommodation of his own for locating his shop. Their application was allowed by the Munsiff who granted two months time to the appellant to vacate the premises and deliver possession to the respondents. An appeal preferred by the appellant before the District Court was dismissed. Thereupon it preferred an application for revision before the High Court under S. 17 of the Act. The main ground upon which the revision application was based was that the portion of the house bearing Nos. 135 and 136 did not require reconstruction at all and that the object of the respondents in making the application for eviction was to reconstruct the building in such a way that the appellant would not be able to obtain the same kind of accommodation in the new building which it now has. The argument advanced in support of the contention was that under S. 8 (2) (ix) of the Act what the landlord has to establish was that it was esesntial for him to reconstruct the house and that the mere desire on his part to reconstruct a new building after demolishing the existing one is not a relevant circumstance. The decision of the Punjab High Court in Labbu Ram v. Ram Prakash, AIR 1959 Punj 103 was relied upon on its behalf in support of this contention. The High Court, however, preferred the view taken in an earlier decision of the same High Court reported in Ram Chander v. Kidar Nath, AIR 1954 Punj 135 which had accepted the view taken by the Calcutta High Court in Bhulan Singh v. Ganendra Kumar Roy, AIR 1950 Cal 74  . The argument advanced before the High Court is repeated before us.

Court's reasoning:
2. We think that that was not a matter which was open to the appellants to raise in a revision petition under S. 17 of the Act before the High Court and consequently cannot be canvassed beforejurisdiction is conferred upon the Court to order eviction of the tenant upon its satisfaction as regards the bona fide requirement of the landlord to obtain possession of the house. Thus the condition which confers jurisdiction upon the Court is its satisfaction about the bona fide requirement of the landlord. If the Court is not satisfied about such requirement of the landlord it will have no jurisdiction to make an order with the aid of that clause. If however, it says that it is satisfied it cannot be regarded as having committed an error pertaining to jurisdiction merely because it may have formed a wrong conclusion as to the bona fides of the landlord in requiring possession of the house. No illegal assumption of jurisdiction is involved in arriving at a wrong finding on the matter. The argument of Mr. Ganapathy lyer therefore must be rejected.