K.S. Radhakrishnan, J.

Love your beloved ones, give a helping hand to the members of your family dependant on you, a message underlined in Section 11(3) of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act. Legislature recognizes human relationship, family bonds and encourages it to promote justice in human relationship. Manifestly with this intention the expressions, “family” and “dependant” are left undefined in the statute, giving freedom to interpret those expressions depending upon the fact situation.

2. Noticing that the earlier Division Benches had not taken into consideration the variety of circumstances under which a person would fall under the expressions “family of the landlord” and “dependant” under Section 11 (3) of the Act the matter has been placed before a larger bench for an authoritative pronouncement. The meaning that could be ascribed to those words were guardedly left undefined by the earlier Division Benches in our view rightly.

3. The expression “family” as such has not been defined in the Act; so also the expression “dependant”. Therefore, the meaning that is to be ascribed to these expressions appearing in Section 11(3) of the Act has to be examined in the light of the judicial precedents as well as the context in which those expressions have been placed in Section 11(3).

4. Judges are confronted with the task of interpreting various expressions used by the Legislature in a statute so as to find out the intention of the legislature from the meaning of the words used and in the context in which those words have been placed. If definition clause, which finds a place in various statutes, gives the meaning of those expressions judges’ task is considerably easy. We are in this case faced with a situation where those expressions, “family”, “dependent” etc. are left undefined in the Act. At the same time, certain similar statutes in other States have given meaning to some of those expressions. For example, Section 2(1) of the Goa Act defines the expression “member of the family”. Section 22(ff) of the Karnataka Rent Control Act 1961 defines the expression “family” Section 2(e) of the M.P. Act defines the expression “member of the family”. Section 2 (6A) of the Tamil Nadu Act also defines the expression “member of the family”. Section 3(g) of the U.P. Act, 1972 also defines the expression family. Section 2(c) of the Tripura Act defines the expression “family”. Judicial decisions interpreting those expressions under the Kerala Rent Act are uniform holding that those expressions be not given any restricted meaning.

5. Learned single judge of this court in Muhammad and others v. Sinnamalu Amma (1977 KLT 795) held that the expression “family” which is undefined by the Act is elastic and its ambit has to be determined in all the circumstances of the case, having regard to the habits, ideas and socio-economic milieu of the parties. Same view has been taken by a Bench of this court in Balakrishna Menon v. District Judge (1994 (1) KLT 102). Another Division Bench of this court followed the above decision in Krishnan Thampi v. Sankaradas (2002 (1) KLT 930). Later a Bench of this court in Kammancheri Janaki & others v. Karattu Govindan Nair and others (2004 (1) KLJ 58) to which one of us (Radhakrishnan, J.) was a party, held as follows:

“In the socio-economic condition of our country, the expression “family” has to be given a wider meaning which is elastic and that it has to be determined on the facts and circumstances of each case and the status of the dependent in the family.”

Later another Division Bench of this court in Ismail v. Kesavan (2004 (2) KLT 56) held as follows:

“Dependency does not mean financial dependency, but dependency for the building which belongs to the landlord. In our society generally son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother, sister etc. are members of the family and would in many cases depend upon the heard of the family. The Kerala Rent Control Act does not define the term “fami