The judgment establishes the distinction between 'profession' and 'trade or business' and interprets the word 'business' in the context of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965, Section 11.

1. The appellant, an advocate practising at Calicut, challenges the correctness of the dismissal of his petition, O. P. No. 1472 of 1965. By that petition he challenged, without success, the correctness of an order of eviction from a house of the first respondent of which he was the tenant.

2. The eviction directed by the District Judge, the Revisional Authority, was under S.11 of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965. The appellant's contention which has been negatived in the judgment under appeal was that he came within the second proviso to sub-section (3) of that section.

3. Sub-section (3) says that 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. There are four provisos to the sub-section. We are concerned only with the second of those four provisos which reads as follows:

"Provided further that the Rent Control Court shall not give any direction to a tenant to put the landlord in possession, if such tenant is depending for his livelihood mainly on the income derived from any trade or business carried on in such building and there is no other suitable building available in the locality for such person to carry on such trade or business."

4. The question for determination is whether an advocate can be considered to carry on a "trade or business" within the meaning of that expression as used in the proviso. The judgment under appeal holds that he cannot be so considered. The same is our view.

5. The expression "trade or business" as we understand it, connotes a commercial activity. The expression "profession" does not, and is virtually at the other end of the scale.

6. The expression "profession" used to be confined to the practice of theology, law and medicine. With the extension of the applications of science and learning, however, the expression has come to cover other vocations as well. But the dividing line between what is a profession and what is a trade or business still subsists and is of material consequence. The distinction is indicated when Art.19(1)(g) of the Constitution says that all citizens shall have the right to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business. The distinction is emphasised when R.40 of the rules made by the Bar Council of India under S.49 of the Advocates Act, 1961, says:

"An Advocate shall not personally engage in any business; but he may be a sleeping partner in a firm doing business provided that, in the opinion of the appropriate State Bar Council, the nature of the business is not inconsistent with the dignity of the profession".

7. What is important in deciding whether a person is carrying on a profession or not is whether he is a member of an organised body with a recognised standard of ability enforced before he can enter it and a recognised standard of conduct enforced while he is practising it (Iyengar on Income-tax, 5th Edition, Volume 2, Page 832). This is certainly not the test in deciding whether a person is carrying on a trade or business.

8. Ballentine's definition of the expression "profession" is: "A vocation in which a professed knowledge of some department of science or learning is used by its practical application to the affairs of others, either in advising, guiding, or teaching them, or in serving their interests or welfare in the practice of an art founded on it."

He goes on to say:

"The word implies professed attainments in special knowledge as distinguished from mere skill. A practical dealing with affairs as distinguished from mere study or investigation; and an application of such knowledge to uses for others as a vocation, as distinguished from its pursuit for its own purposes."

9. Of the various cases cited before us the nearest is M/s. L. M. Chitale v. Labour Commissioner, AIR. 1964 Madras 131. In that case the