The main legal point established in the judgment is that pleadings in rent control petitions should be liberally construed, and the determination of whether a building constitutes one unit for the purpose of eviction under S.11(8) should be based on the common understanding of the building as a whole.

T.L. Viswanatha Iyer, J.

1. The tenant of the downstairs portion of a building belonging to the respondent is the petitioner in this revision petition filed under S.20 of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965 (the Act). The respondent who is a Chartered Accountant by profession applied for eviction of the building quoting S.11(3) of the Act as the provision under which the petition is filed. The petition was allowed by the Rent Control Court under S.11 (8) of the Act and eviction ordered, which was affirmed in appeal by the then appellate authority, the Subordinate Judge of Alleppey. The order was however set aside by the revisional court (the District Court) as in its view the appellate authority had not arrived at definite findings "on the important aspects of application of law" namely S.11 (3) and 11(8). The matter was therefore remitted to the appellate authority for reconsideration of the matter after re-appreciation of the entire evidence, in the light of the observations contained in the revisional court's judgment.

2. It so happened that while the matter was pending after the remit, before the Sub Judge as the appellate authority the jurisdiction of the appellate authority stood vested in the District Judge by notification issued by Government and accordingly the appeal was taken up for disposal by the District Judge himself functioning as the appellate authority. He dismissed the appeal upholding the order of the rent control court. This revision is filed therefrom.

3. The landlord, who, as mentioned earlier, is a practising Chartered Accountant is occupying the upstair portion of the building, the downstairs of which is in the occupation of the petitioner, from whom it is now sought to be evicted. Though the respondent had quoted S.11 (3) as the provision of law under which he filed his petition, the rent control court was of the view that from the nature of the allegations in the rent control petition, the requirement of the respondent was one really for additional accommodation, falling under S.11(8). Since the respondent had made out his requirement for additional accommodation under that provision, the rent control court ordered eviction under S.11(8), after considering the question of comparative hardship. He held that the petitioner could not resist eviction on the ground that the hardship caused to him by eviction will outweigh the hardship to the respondent by refusing eviction. He also went into the question, whether the petitioner was entitled to the protection afforded by the second proviso to S.11(3) namely whether he was depending mainly on the income from the business carried on in the premises for his livelihood and whether there was no other suitable accommodation available to him in the locality for carrying on such business, though this was not really required to be gone into in the light of the finding that eviction was liable to be ordered under S11(8) and held that the petitioner was not entitled to protection under the said proviso.

4. The appellate authority confirmed this order of eviction passed under S11(8) of the Act.

5. Counsel for the petitioner contended in the first instance that the petition having been filed under S.11(3), it could not have been dealt with as one under S.11(8) and ordered accordingly. According to him, the pleadings in the case related only to a claim under S.11(3) namely the bona fide requirement of the respondent for the building for his own occupation, and that there was no sufficient pleading to bring the case under S.11(8), namely need of the landlord in possession of a portion of the building for additional accommodation for his personal use. It is his submission that the petitioner has been taken by surprise by the course adopted and that the matter should in any case be remitted to the rent control court for fresh disposal, if not altogether dismissed for want of pleadings. Inter alia he referred to some observations in the revisional court'