Judgment

RANGANATHAN, J.-After having heard learned counsel on both sides, we grant special leave and proceed to dispose of the appeal itself by this order, the point involved being a very short one.

2. Real estate prices all over the country, and particularly in important capital cities, have spiralled up in the last few decades to such heights that disputes over land, which at one tune could have been resolved by a little give and take between the parties have now assumed a magnitude which makes any type of reconciliation impossible. In this case, where the dispute arises out of a lease by a prominent charitable trust in Madras in favour of a well-established engineering company of all-India stature, we were somewhat hopeful that the parties would agree not to waste further time and energy in litigation but would come to some reasonable compromise. We tried our best by adjourning the case several times and encouraging the parties to come up with various proposals for compromise. Ultimately, however, we found that it was not possible to bring the parties together. We, therefore, proceed to dispose of the issues raised in the appeal.

3. On August 13, 1951, M/s Larsen & Toubro, the appellant company, took on lease from the respondent trustees a property situated in a busy central locality of the city of Madras. In 1975, the trustees filed a suit for possession. The appellant company responded by claiming protection under Section 9 of the Tamil Nadu City Tenants Protection Act (3 of 1922) (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The short question that arises in the appeal is whether the company is entitled to this protection. The above piece of legislation was enacted primarily for the protection of small tenants, who in certain municipal towns and adjoining areas had constructed buildings on others lands, by ensuring that they are not evicted so long as they pay a fair rent for the land. The Act also contained a provision under which the tenant could put forward a claim to purchase the land in question from the owner at its average market value of the three immediately preceding years. It is highly doubtful whether the Act was intended to enable affluent persons or prosperous companies, like the present appellant, to take advantage of its provisions to compel a lessor to sell to them property of which they have obtained initial possession as lessees. However, the question has to be decided not on such general considerations but on the language of the statute itself and so we proceed to discuss the issue involved.

4. It is first necessary to advert to the terms of the lease deed.

5. By the lease deed dated August 13, 1951, the lessors (trustees) purported to demise to the lessee (company) "all that plot of vacant land and the buildings erected thereon and more particularly described in the schedule hereto and delineated in the plan hereto annexed and measuring 17 grounds and 321 sq. ft. or thereabouts". The term of the lease was 21 years from the date of the lease. The consideration was "a monthly rent of Rs 900 for the aforesaid land and a monthly rent of Rs 350 for the aforesaid buildings aggregating in all to Rs 1250 per month" and the other conditions and covenants set out in the deed. Paras I and II of the lease deed set out the following, among other, covenants between the parties :

(a) The lessee was to pay, and had paid, an advance of Rs 15,000 to the lessor refundable without interest on the termination of the lease ;

(b) the lessee was to pay the rent reserved regularly whether or not any buildings were erected by the lessees on the demised land and irrespective of whether the land or the buildings were of use to them for the purposes for which they were taken on lease ;

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(e) the lessee was to comply with all municipal and local regulations "in the erection and completion of any buildings on the demised plot".

(f) the lessors were to pay the property tax for the existing demised building but the lessees were to pay all taxes