The court emphasized that every inequality of treatment is not hit by Art.14, and the proviso in S.11(3) of the Act was found to be rational and not violative of Art.14.

1. The appellant is the tenant, whose writ petition to vacate concurrent orders by the authorities under the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, No. XVI of 1959, hereafter referred to as the Act, been disallowed by a learned judge. The facts relevant for deciding the appeal are not in dispute, though the correctness of the grounds on which the eviction been ordered was challenged before the learned judge; and the challenge has been repeated before us. The appellant's learned advocate has urged several arguments for the appeal being allowed, three of which are against the constitutionality of the Act, and

two about the application of the provisions of the Act to the facts of the case. For better appreciation of the aforesaid grounds, we should now state the facts in the case.

2. The appellant was a teacher in the S. R.V. Government High School, Ernakulam from 1952 to July 1956, and has since been promoted as the Headmistress of the Government High School, Elamkunnapuzha. In November 1952 she was allotted the house in Ernakulam, which she has now been ordered to vacate and the ownership of the house has since changed hand, the landlord before us having purchased it from the owner who owned it when the Rent Controller allotted it to the appellant. A ground has been taken in the writ petition about the transfer not being bona fide because the relation between the parties had earlier become strained. It is averred that the stipulated rent being Rs. 75/- the appellant moved the Rent Controller for fixation of the fair rent, which in the middle of 1953 was fixed at Rs 60/-, that the reduction strained the relation between the owner and the appellant; and that because the former owned several houses and could not evict, he offered the house to the present owner, a practising lawyer, who purchased it on September 16,1957. The appellant's case is that the deal was with a view to get the appellant evicted and about two months later, the new landlord filed the petition before the Rent Controller for evicting the appellant on the ground of the house being required for the landlord's personal residence the building in which the new owner was then living on rent, being unsuitable. The aforesaid proceedings were begun under the Travancore-Cochin Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Order, 1950, and the whole of the following year appears to have been taken up with determination of whether the petition should be allowed. No decision had been reached when the Act came into force on April 3, 1959, and it repealed the Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Order, under which the proceedings been initiated. Among other things, S.11 (3) of the Act provides as follows:

11 (3). 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 this own occupation or the occupation by any member of his family dependent on him:

Provided that the Rent Control Court shall not give any such direction if the landlord has another building in his possession in the same City, Town or village, except where the Rent Control Court is satisfied that for special reasons, in any particular case, it will be just and proper to do so."

xxx xxx xxx xxx

Thereafter the landlord applied for his petition being amended in order to take advantage of the first proviso to S.11 (3), and assigned two grounds for the appellant being directed to vacate which were that the house, in which the landlord been living was in water-logged area and that the appellant been transferred as the Head Mistress to another place which is seven miles away. The Rent Controller allowed the amendment prayed for, and, on February 12,1960, held both the two grounds to have been made out. The appellant was therefore directed to vacate and that order has been sustained by the Appellate court, the revision petition against it being equally ineffective. The appellant then invoked Art.226 and