A co-owner is entitled to seek eviction without the junction of other co-owners.

K.T. Thomas, J.

1. Among the three grounds espoused by a landlord for eviction of a tenant from his building, the one which ultimately survived is that the tenant has ceased to occupy the building for more than six months. Thus, an order of eviction has been granted on the ground envisaged in S.11(4)(v) of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965 (for short 'the Act'). District Court, in revision, did not interfere with the finding of the Appellate Authority as regards the aforesaid ground. This Original Petition is in challenge of the order of the District Court (Ext. P3).

2. Finding of the Appellate Authority that the tenant ceased to occupy the building for more then six months, is based on some materials. Ext. X2 is a copy of the application (dated 9-7-1984) filed by the tenant A for shifting his telephone connection from this building to another which contains a clear statement that he had already shifted his residence to the other building. The tenant himself admitted in his evidence that his wife and children were residing in the latter building since 1981. He filed necessary application to shift cooking gas connection to the other building. All these circumstances weighed with the Appellate Authority in reaching the aforesaid finding.

3. There is nothing to show that the Appellate Authority has acted on any extraneous material to reach the finding. Learned District Judge was perfectly justified in not interfering with the judgment of the Appellate Authority.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner mainly contended that petitioner, being only one of the coowners cannot maintain the application for eviction without the junction of other coowners. There is no dispute that the landlord who filed the application for eviction is only a coowner. It is true that the other coowners have not joined in filing the application. Learned counsel for the petitioner cited the decision in Kunhalu v. Baputty (1991 (2) KLT 598) and submitted that learned District Judge went wrong in distinguishing the decision on facts of that case. Counsel for the petitioner gave thrust to the following observations made by Padmanabhan, J in the aforesaid decision: When there are two or more coowners, this Implied covenant would obviously be in favour of all of them and they would be jointly entitled to enforce it vide S.43 of the Contract Act. They must, therefore, all join in filing a suit to recover possession except when, by a special provision of law, coowners are permitted to sue through some or one of the members''. Learned District Judge pointed out that the said decision envisaged two exceptions and the case on hand falls in one of the exceptions.

5. However, it must be noted that Padmanabhan, J. has stated the law in Para.3 of Kunhalu's decision thus:

"Law presumes that each and every coowner is as much in possession of the entire coownership property as any other coowner. So also, his possession is considered in law to be on behalf of other coownersalso. Trespass into coownership property is a wrong against the possession of all coowners even though all may not be in physical possession. Rule is well settled that a coowner can, without representing the other coowners or without joining them, maintain an action to evict a trespasser".

The other observations are only obiter dicta. Application for eviction was filed in that case by all the coowners in whose favour the rent deed was executed by the tenants. This can be found out from the facts, and hence the observations made by the learned single Judge regarding necessity for junction of all the coowners in the application for eviction cannot be treated as ratio of the decision.

6. A landlord is defined is S.2(3) of the Act as including a person "who is entitled to receive rent of a building on his own account or on behalf of another or on behalf of himself and others". Supreme Court has settled the law beyond the pale of doubt that action for eviction of a tenant can be made by one