IMPORTANT POINT
Tenants must clearly plead claims for permanent tenancy; revision jurisdiction does not allow re-evaluation of factual findings unless gross irregularity is shown.

ORDER :

P. Krishna Kumar, J.

The tenants who suffered an order of eviction under Sections 11(2)(b) and 11(3) of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965 (‘the Act’, for short) challenge the concurrent findings of the Rent Control Court and the Appellate Authority, by invoking the revisional jurisdiction of this court.

2. The short facts which are necessary for the disposal of this case are as follows:

The landlord-respondent purchased the tenanted premises on 04/03/1995. The predecessor-in-interest of the tenants-revision petitioners was inducted into the said building by the prior owner as his tenant, and the tenancy continued despite the death of the original tenant. The landlord requires the vacant possession of the tenanted building for the bona fide occupation of his dependent son. The tenants objected to the petition for eviction, contending that the need projected was not genuine.

3. We heard the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners as well as the respondent.

4. It is forcefully submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioners that the predecessor-in-interest of the petitioners was a commercial tenant and thus the petitioners are entitled to get protection under Section 106 of the Kerala Land Reforms Act (for short, KLR Act). It is argued that there was a specific contention in the written objection that the original tenancy was commenced on 18/08/1961 in between the predecessors of both sides and the original tenant had reconstructed the petition scheduled building by using his own money with the consent of the prior owner for conducting business in Pooja articles. According to the learned counsel, the courts of the first and second instances omitted to note the relevance of the said legal question even though the first revision petitioner had given oral evidence as RW1 to prove the said contentions. It is further urged that the matter should have been taken out of the precincts of the Rent Control Court considering the second proviso to section 11(1) of the Act, in the light of the above-mentioned pleadings.

5. We cannot accept these contentions for the apparent reason that the revision petitioners failed to plead the claim of permanent tenancy in specific and explicit terms. The pleadings regarding the denial of title or the claim for permanent tenancy must be clear, specific, and unequivocal, without which the Rent Control Court cannot assess whether the said contention was raised in good faith or was merely a pretext for eviction. Although the strict rules of pleadings may not apply with full force to rent control proceedings, when the statute imposes a duty on the court to examine the genuineness of the claim before making a crucial decision, the party who wishes to invoke the said remedy must plead it with certainty and particularity.

6. In Abdul Hakkim v. Shazam Abdul Majeed (2017 (5) KHC 538), this Court faced a similar situation. As in the present case, the concurrent findings of the rent control authorities were challenged before this court by filing a revision petition on the ground that the question of denial of title was not properly addressed by the courts of first and second instances. It is then held that such a contention has to be explicitly raised.

7. Apart from that, we find no merit in the contention raised by the learned counsel for claiming protection under the second proviso to Section 11(1) of the Act based on the abovementioned allegations. The landlord can be relegated to a civil court only if the respondent in the eviction proceedings denies in good faith the title of the landlord or otherwise claims permanent tenancy. To avail the protection under Section 106 of the KLR Act, the respondent in the eviction proceedings must plead and establish two essential conditions:

(i) that they were granted a lease of the land (not a building) for commercial or industrial purposes, and (ii) that subsequent to the grant of the lease, they constructed a building or structure on the land f