Judgment

SEN, J.:- This appeal, by special leave from a judgment of the Gujarat High Court, involves the question of comparative hardship under S. 13 (2) of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act. 1947 brevity the Act.

2. First as to the facts. The appellant-plaintiff is a merchant who was settled in Africa and was carrying an business in Kampala in Uganda. Due to political upheaval in that country, he along with his family migrated to India in 1964 and began living in a rental house at Rajkot, where he owns a building known as "Trivedi House. On September 21, 1964 he brought a suit for eviction of the respondent-defendant. Laxmishankar Tribhoyan from the suit premises, which consists of a shop on the ground floor of the said building on the ground that he reasonably and bona fide required the suit premises for starting his business. The defendant denied the claim and pleaded that the plaintiff did not want to settle down at Rajkot and had already gone back to Africa and that, in any event, even if the plaintiffs alleged need under S. 13 (1) (g) of the Act were proved, no decree for eviction could be passed because of comparative hardship by reason of S. 13 (2) o