The crucial date for deciding the bonafides of the requirement is the date of the eviction application. Subsequent events must wholly satisfy the petitioner's requirement to overshadow the bonafide need concurrently found by the fact-finding courts.

1. Leave granted.

2. This case presents a sample scenario of the tormenting plight of an average litigant who approaches the court with all expectations of getting relief for his urgent need. But the snail-paced litigation creeping through all the tiers of the judicial hierarchical forums would have frustrated all his expectations, though others could admire the tenacity with which he persisted with the cause. Twenty three years ago, the litigant in this case wanted accommodation for his son, who then became a medical graduate, to start a clinic so that from the stage of a fledgling in the profession of medicine he could fly higher up. His father who owns the building moved for eviction of the tenant from the building for the said purpose. Although he won the battle at all tiers the urgently needed eviction is till now eluding him as a mirage.

3. Appellant is the tenant of a shop building situate at Khalsa Gali, Agra. In 1978, the respondent-landlord filed an application under S.21(1)(a) of the U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 (for short 'the U.P. Act') on a twin need. One is that his son who passed his medical examination wanted to carry on medical practice and this building was needed for housing his clinic. The other is, the landlord himself had just retired from Railway service and he too did not want to waste his time, talent and energy and hence he wanted to start a radio repairing work which he thought could be performed by using a portion of the building. The first forum, called the Prescribed Authority, where the application was filed, found the claim bona fide and ordered eviction on 25.3.1982. It was further found by the said Authority that the tenant has alternative accommodation in the same city for doing his business.

4. Appellant filed an appeal but it took only 3 years for the Appellate Court to dismiss the appeal on 10.10.1985. Though three years of pendency of an appeal is too much for a litigant it is not considered unduly long by the standards now developed regarding the pendency position of cases in the courts in India.

5. The lengthiest leap which appellant secured was thereafter when he approached the High Court. He filed a Writ Petition challenging the order of eviction before the High Court of Allahabad in 1985 and the High Court after entertaining the Writ Petition granted stay of operation of the eviction order. With the said initial dosage administered by the High Court at the entry stage, the hibernated Writ Petition seemed to have been consigned to records where it remained in torpidity for a record period of 15 years. The dust stricken Writ Petition was taken up and disposed of only thereafter and the High Court found no ground to interfere with the order challenged before it. Appellant who gained such a record time did not hesitate to make a plea to the High Court to grant him six months' time more to vacate and that too was acceded to on a condition that appellant should give an undertaking before original authority that he would vacate the premises within six months.

6. The appellant who lost at all levels and yet succeeded during all these years by keeping the order of eviction at bay, lately discovered that the landlord's son, for whom the eviction was sought, joined the Provincial Medical Service after 12 years of the institution of the lis. On that premise appellant ventured to move the same High Court once again, and this time for a review of the order. However, the review petition was dismissed by the High Court as per its order which is also impugned now.

7. In the appeal petition filed in this Court appellant stated that the son of the landlord who joined the Provincial Medical Service is posted at a place situated 200 kilometres from Agra, whereat the building is situate, and that he is now getting a pay of Rs. 15,000/- per month.

8. The point sought to be urged is that, subsequent developments may also be taken into account in eviction pro