ORDER :- In this petition under Article 227 of the Constitution, a question of law has been raised, but I am relieved of entering into a detailed discussion of the same because that has been already decided by authorities which are binding upon me. The petitioner is the tenant of a room forming part of a building bearing C.T.S. No. 2197 situate at Kolhapur and the respondents' father was the original owner of the said house. It is an admitted position that the respondents' father has died and the respondents are some of the legal representatives of the original owner. It has been brought on record that apart from the five respondents, their father left behind him his widow and three daughters. The foundation of the arguments advanced in the two Courts below and repeated before me is this fact that it is not the five respondents alone who are the owners of the suit premise, but their mother and the three sisters are also owners of the same.

2. Regular Civil Suit No.438 of 1973 was filed by the five respondents for possession of the suit premises on the ground among others, that the petitioner was in arrears of rent for a period of more than six months and he has not complied with the requirements mentioned in Section 12(2) of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, hereinafter referred to as "the Bombay Rent Act". Both the Courts below have upheld the claim of the respondents and decreed the suit for possession. The trial Court passed the decree on 31st of January, 1976, which has been confirmed by the Appeal Court in Civil Appeal No.172 of 1976 by its Judgment and order dated 30th of June 1977. The petitioner has now approached this Court under Article 227 of the Constn.

3. Mr. Bandivadekar, the learned Advocate appearing in support of the petition, has repeated the challenge as to the competence of the respondents to file the suit when the other heirs of the original landlord have not been joined either in giving the notice under Section 12(2) of the Bombay Rent Act or in the suit which was filed for possession. Mr. Bandivadekar, has contended that the reliance placed by the learned Assistant Judge on the judgment of this Court in Nishramal Chhogala v. N.B. Patel, (1963) 65 Bom LR 15, is wrong because subsequently that judgment has been distinguished by Bhasme J. in Mohan Sons Pvt. Ltd. v. Sonoo Jamsetji, (1976) 78 Bom LR 195: (AIR 1976 Bom 417). Mr. Bandivadekar has naturally relied upon the later judgment which apparently supports his contention that some only of the owner of a building cannot file a suit for possession under the provisions of the Bombay Rent Act.

4. Much water, however, has flown down the Ganges after the judgment of Bhasme J. was given. In Smt. Kanta Goel v. B.P. Pathak, AIR 1977 SC 1599, a similar question arose and has been answered conclusively. In that case the suit premises had been leased to the tenant by one Pandit Saraswatidas who died in the year 1972 leaving behind him the plaintiff, two other sons and a daughter as his legal representatives. It was the plaintiff alone who filed the application or the suit before the Rent Collector under the provisions of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958. One of the contentions which was taken in the Court below as well as in the higher Courts was that the plaintiff alone could not file a suit for possession of the premises leased to the tenant and in order that the suit should be properly constituted all the legal representatives of the original owner or in other words all the owners of the building at the time of the institution of the suit must necessarily join in the suit. This argument was rejected by the Supreme Court. However, in Kanta Goel's case the other co-owners of the suit premises had been joined as parties at the High Court stage. The contention which was raised on behalf of the tenant was summarised by the Supreme Court in the following words (at, p.1601):-

"The presence of the coheirs at the High Court level was inconsequen

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