The High Court's power of superintendence under Article 227 of the Constitution is limited to ensuring that subordinate courts act within the bounds of their authority and cannot be used to correct mere errors of fact.

( 1 ) A landlady had rented out her flat at Bandra (West) Bombay (now Mumbai) to a tenant in 1969 for Rs. 200. 00 p. m. As years passed by, she found it difficult to accommodate her large family in the small residential apartment where she is presently living. So, she moved the Court in 1977 for a decree of eviction of her tenant from her flat at Bandra. Of course, she cast the net very wide covering a variety of grounds to have a decree for eviction, but what ultimately survived among them was the ground envisaged in Section 13 (1) (g) of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodiging House Rates Control Act, 1947 (for short the Act ), i. e, bona tide and reasonable requirement of the tenanted premises for her own occupation. Though, she was non-suited,by the trial (which is the Small Causes Court, Bombay), she went in appeal to the appellant bench of the Court,small Causes, where she got a decree tor eviction on the ground mentioned above. But the said decree was later upset by the High Court/of Bombay when the tenant filed a W. P. under Article 227 of the Constitution for quashment of the same. This appeal, by special leave, has been tiled by the landlady impugning the aforesaid judgment of the High Court

( 2 ) IT is to be pointed out, right now itself that the need of the landlady for additional accommodation in view of her large family was recognised by the trial court. Still she was non-suited by the trial court on the premises thal her pleadings on that score were scan Appeal Court after concurring with the finding which was favourable to the landlady did not take the inadequaancy in the pleadings as capable of fatally affecting her caused Hence the appeal court found no hurdle in granting the decree of eviction. But a learned single Judge of the High Court who quashed the decree held the landlady guilty of two wrongs. First is that the she did not speak the truth in her evidence that her eldest son (whose name is Giles Drego) has his own flat where he is living with his family. The landlady has admitted that her son Giles Drego and his wife are joint owners of a flat situate at area of the apartment in which she is presently living with their family.

( 3 ) ACCORDING to us, the High Court has traversed far beyond the limit of its supervisory jurisdiction u/s Art. 227 of the Constitution when the learned Judge reversed die decree of eviction which was based on findings of facts arrived at by fact-finding authority upon the evidence on record. It would have been well for the High Court to remind itself thal it was not exercising certiorari jurisdiction u/art. 226 of the Constitution but a supervisory jurisdiction u/art. 227 which obliges the High Court to confine to the scrutiny of records and proceedings of the lower tribunal. By relying on fresh materials which were not before the tribunal, the High Court should not have disturbed findings of facts in exercise of such supervisory jurisdiction. It is now well nigh settled that power u/art. 227 is one of judicial superintendence which cannot be used to upset conclusion of facts, however erroneous those may be, unless such conclusions are so preverse or so unreasonable thal no court could ever have reached them. Way back in 1954, a Constitution Bench of this Court, in Waryam Singh Vs. Amarnath (AIR 1954 SC 215) has pointed out that the power of superintendence conferred by Article 227 should be exercised "most sparingly and only in appropriate cases in order to keep the subordinate courts within the bounds of their audiority and not for correcting mere errors. " (emphasis supplied ).

( 4 ) THE said decision was made in an appeal which considered an order passed by a Rent Control Court. Quoting the aforesaid dictum a three Judge Bench of this Court has in Habhutmal Raichand Oswal Vs. Laxmibai (AIR 1975 SC 1297) observed thus :

"the power of the superintendence of High Court under Article 227 being extraordinary is to be exercised mot sparingly and only in appropriate cases. The p