JUDGMENT :

Dama Seshadri Naidu, J.

Introduction:

In a suit for eviction, the owners have concurrently succeeded. Both the trial Court and the Appellate Court have accepted that the owners need the property for their use. Aggrieved, the tenants filed this Civil Revision Application (CRA) before this Court, under Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The tenants have pleaded three things :

(a) Change of circumstances or subsequent developments;

(b) Owners' suppressing facts; and

(c) the suit proceedings getting abated. We will examine.

Facts:

2. Generations ago, one landlord let a piece of property-two shops-to one tenant. The tenancy continued. Both the original landlord and the original tenant passed away. Later, their legal heirs succeeded on either side. Eventually, in 1986 the wife and seven children of the immediate predecessor-landlord filed Suit No.585/1986 to evict the tenants, on the grounds of bona fide requirement and arrears of rent. During the trial, it seems, the owners gave up their claim on the arrears of rent, but they persisted with the bona fide requirement under Section 13(1)(g) of the Bombay Rent Control Act. Eventually, in 2001, the trial Court decreed the suit.

3. Aggrieved, the tenants filed Civil Appeal No.343 of 2001. That appeal too was dismissed. Thus, the tenants suffered concurrent findings. As a matter of collateral development, three defendants, that is the defendants 3, 5 and 7, died pending the suit. The owners did bring on record the legal representatives (LRs) of the 5th and the 7th respondents. But could not bring on record the LRs of the 3rd defendant. Eventually, the Appellate Bench of the Small Cause Court dismissed the Appeal.

4. Assailing the judgment in appeal, the tenants filed Civil Revision Application No. 497 of 2016. Six months later, the tenants also filed Civil Application No.62 of 2017 with a few documents to bring on record what the tenants called the later developments not in their knowledge till then. Submissions:

Petitioners-Tenants:

5. In the above factual background, Shri Rajesh Patil, instructed by Shri Rahul Matkari for the applicant, has submitted that pending the appeal in October 2015, the owners inducted a new tenant into the adjacent shop. Had there been any bona fide requirement, they would have used that property, too, for themselves, instead of letting it out to a 3rd party. In that context, Shri Patil asserts that the plea of bona fide requirement is false.

6. Then, Shri Patil has drawn my attention to a few photographs to assert that a lady by name Neeta Ranpise is the new tenant and that she has been carrying on the business in the adjacent property. Shri Patil has laid frontal emphasis on what he calls suppression of facts by the owners. According to him, two of the plaintiffs secured government employment pending the suit. They never brought it to the notice of the courts below. Had they brought this vital piece of information to the Appellate Bench's notice, the outcome could have been different. On this count, Shri Patil stresses that once a suiter's conduct is not bona fide, he deserves no indulgence from the court and, on the same reckoning, even a meritorious case can be thrown out.

7. Shri Patil has also submitted that for many years, the landlords have kept two rooms near the leased property locked. This again exposes the owners' claim there was any bona fide requirement to accommodate themselves and carry on business in the leased property. To elaborate, Shri Patil has shown me a rough sketch filed along with the civil application, to hammer home his contention that there exists a clear open space, where the landlords could have constructed as per their convenience. Thus, the owners could have had a more commodious building, accommodating the alleged growing needs of the family.

8. One of the owners living in the vicinity, Shri Patil contends, has constructed a new structure for the residential as well as commercial purpose. Then, similarly, the other owner