Balakrishnan, J.

1. The short point that arises for consideration in these seven Rent Control Revisions is whether the order for joint trial and the consequent order of eviction passed by the learned Rent Controller u/s.11(3) of Act 2/65 which was confirmed in appeal by the learned Appellate Authority suffer from the vice of illegality, irregularity or impropriety warranting invocation of the revisional jurisdiction of this Court under S. 20 of the Act.

2. Eight Rent Control Petitions were filed by the same landlord against different tenants inter alia raising the common ground for eviction under S.11(3) of the Act. All the petition schedule rooms form part of the ground floor of a larger building. The common ground urged by the landlord is that he requires all the petition schedule buildings/rooms for the purpose of conducting a departmental store. It was averred that in order to conduct a departmental store, necessary modifications and alternations will be effected by him after the buildings are got vacated. Against some of the tenants apart from Section 11(3), other grounds like Section 11(4)(iii) and 11(4)(v) were also projected.

3. All the eight Rent Control Petitions were jointly tried and a common order of eviction was passed by the Rent Control Court on the ground of bonafide need and on other grounds also.

4. The respondent in R.C.P.No.1/2008 did not file any appeal. It is reported that he subsequently vacated the building held by him.

5. The appeals filed by other seven tenants were dismissed by the learned Appellate Authority confirming the order of eviction under Section 11(3) of the Act. Challenging the concurrent verdicts the tenants have come up in revision. They contend that the joint trial allowed by the Rent Controller is unsustainable since there is differentiality in the defensive pleas taken by the tenants and that merely because all the rooms are under the common roof belonging to the same landlord, it cannot be held that the petitions can be jointly tried.

6. Sri. V.Chitambaresh, learned senior counsel has relied upon the decision in Ebrahim Ismail Kunju v. Phasila Beevi [1991(2) KLT 861] and submitted that since the common ground urged by the landlord is under Section 11(3), the tenants can have different defensive pleas pertaining to the second proviso to Section 11(3) and the evidence that can be let in by the tenants to prove entitlement of the benefit under the second proviso must certainly vary depending upon the various defences taken by them. In Ebrahim Ismail Kunju v. Phasila Beevi [1991(1) KLT 861] this Court was considering a case where there were two landlords. Smt.Phasila Beevi was the landlady in one case and her husband was the landlord in the other two cases. They filed a petition for joint trial. In that case it was found that a joint trial would work out serious prejudice to the parties and therefore it was held that order for joint trial cannot be sustained. But here, the landlord is the same. The decision in Ebrahim Ismail Kunju v. Ogasuka Beevi (cited supra) was followed in Sasidharan v. Saroja (2004(2) KLT 885). That decision was also relied upon by the learned senior counsel for the revision petitioner, where it was held:

"Landlord in all the cases is the same.Tenants are different. Need urged is also the same. That by itself, in our view, is not sufficient to order a joint trial. A Division Bench of this Court in Ibrahim Ismail Kunju v. Phasila Beevi, 1991(1)KLT 861, while dealing with the scope of Section 23 of Act 2 of 1965 in a case where eviction was sought for under Section 11 (3) held that the mere fact that three shop rooms are under a common roof would not justify the running of a joint trial".

7. It may be remembered that the decision in Sasidharan's case was rendered as the application for joint trial was opposed and not in a case like this, where the application was not opposed at all and the parties lay by it and submitted to the jurisdiction and suff