The central legal point established is that 'requirement' is synonymous with 'need', and a genuine present need is essential for eviction under the Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965.

1. Petitioner applied for evicting the respondent-tenant from a residential building on the grounds that the rent was in arrears, that he bona fide required the building for the occupation of his son Ravindran who is depending on him and that the respondent had unauthorisedly sublet a portion of the building, grounds which fall under S 11(2) (b), S 11(3) and 11 (4) (i) respectively of the Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965. While offering to pay the rent that was in arrears, the respondent resisted the petition denying the bona fide need claimed by the petitioner and the sub-lease put forward by him.

2. The Rent Control Court upheld the grounds under S.11 (2)(b) and (3) and allowed the petition. Pending the appeal taken by the respondent he discharged the arrears of rent and that ground ceased to be alive. On the other surviving ground the Appellate Authority agreed with the Rent Control Court and sustained the order of eviction. The respondent carried a revision and the learned District Judge set aside the decisions and remanded the petition for fresh disposal, by the order which is the subject of this revision.

3. The learned judge reversed the orders on two grounds the first that what the authorities had considered was whether the petitioner "bona fide requires" it and the second that they had wrongly approached the question by discussing whether the petitioner's son required the building and not whether the petitioner required it. The question in this revision is whether the orders of the Rent Control Court and Appellate Authority are so vitiated.

4. S.11(3) reads thus:

"A landlord may apply to the Rent Control Court for an order directing the tenant to put the landlord in possession of the building if he bona fide needs the building for his own occupation or for the occupation by any member of his family dependent on him".

5. The District Judge has held that "bona fide requirement" is not the same as "bonafide need" (which is the expression used in the above subsection) and that a mere desire to get back possession may amount to bona fide requirement, whereas bona fide need can be established only if there is genuine need or necessity for the landlord to claim eviction. Lexicographically there is no such divergence between "need" and "requirement" as the following references will bear out:

The Concise Oxford Dictionary.

Need: (n) thing wanted, respect in which want is felt, requirement.

(vb) stand in need of, require.

Require: Need.

Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary.

Require: to need.

Webster's New International Dictionary.

Need: to require,

Require: to need

Requirement: a need.

Fowler's Modern English Usage.

...But requirement means properly a need, and requisite a needed thing.

Eric Partridge's Usage and Abusage.

"a requirement is a want, a need; that which is needed.

Webster's New World Thesaurus; Need: (v) require...

(n) A requirement...

Require: To need...

Requirement: ... A need...

Turning to case law, in Phiroze Bamanji Desai v. Chandrakant N. Patel, (1974) 1 S. C C. 661, the expression 'reasonably and bona fide required" in the Bombay Rents Hotel and Lodging House Rates (Control) Act, 1947 was explained thus (667):

"The District Judge did not misdirect himself in regard to the true meaning of the word 'requires' in S.13 (I) (g) and interpreted it correctly to mean that there must be an element of need before a landlord can be said to 'require' premises for his own use and occupation. It is not enough that the landlord should merely desire to use and occupy the premises. What is necessary is that he should need them for his own use and occupation".

Much to the same effect is the observation of Venkatadri J in Petroleum Workers Union v A. Mohamed and Co., AIR. 1967 Madras 33, 35 where the words "reasonable requirement" in the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960 was considered:

"It connotes something more than desire although much less than absolute necessity and the landlord must have a genuine pres