Judgment

CHANDRACHUD, CJI.:- The respondent-landlord filed, 7 petitions for ejectment against 7 different tenants. Four out of these occupied shop premises on the ground floor and the other 3 occupied residential premises on the first floor of a building situated at Door No. 14, Pursuawalkam High Road, Madras. The appellant is one of the four tenants of a shop on the ground floor.

2. The case of the respondent is that he is running a wholesale business in textiles on the first floor of a building at 93 Godown Street. Madras; that it is inconvenient and uneconomical for him to carry on his business there that he was incurring heavy losses in his wholesale business by reason of conditions peculiar to the location of his business and that, therefore, he wanted to wind up the wholesale business and start a retail business in the building which was in the occupation of his tenants.

3. The learned trial Judge decreed all the petitions and passed orders of eviction against every one of the 7 tenants. One of these, who occupied a so-called shop measuring 4 x 4 under a stairway, acquiesced in the decree of eviction passed against him. The other 3 tenants of the shop premises challenged the dec