JUDGMENT:-Four ejectment suits under the Presidency Towns Small Causes Court Act were filed by the different land owners against a common set of tenants, who were given a lease of vacant land and on which they have put up superstructure and who filed petitions under section 9 of the Tamil Nadu City Tenants Protection Act for relief. When these suits were filed 11 petitioners of whom petitioners 4 and 11, who are also defendants 4 and 11 in the ejectment suits were receivers appointed by the High Court in C.S. No. 152 of 1960 on the file of the High Court, Madras. It is common ground that the original lease of the vacant site was in favour of the firm of N. V. Abdullah Sahib. It is also not in dispute that the said firm of which the defendants other than defendant 11 were partners and were conducting the said business put up superstructure of their own even prior to 1954. Due to certain disputes amongst the partners after the death of N.V. Abdullah Sahib, a suit was filed in the High Court, C.S. No. 152 of 1960. It is in that suit defendants 4 and 11 were appointed as joint receivers.. The fourth defendant is a party receiver and defendant 11 is an advocate receiver. In the ejectment suits, the 11th defendant was also made a party, since it was necessary in law for the landlords to do so. On receipt of summons in the ejectment suit, four applications were filed purporting to be by defendants 4 and 11 to secure the benefits under section 9 of the Tamil Nadu City Tenants’ Protection Act. The affidavit in support of the application under section 9 of the Act was sworn to by the 4th defendant alone but purports to be on behalf of himself and others, though admittedly all others were ex parte and did not appear at all. This was resisted by the plaintiffs-landlords in the respective ejectment suits. They have taken up the position that the advocate-receiver of the estate, who is also a party defendant in the suit, not having made the application under section 9 of the Act, the applications were not maintainable. They would also allege that defendants 1 to 10 including defendant 4, who was the party receiver, were not doing any business on the plots leased out and that the superstructures were let out by the advocate-receiver to third parties and the interested defendants having discontinued their business long ago, are not entitled to the benefits under the protective enactment, namely, Tamil Nadu City Tenants Protection Act. In effect the contention is that mere owning of the superstructures by itself would not be sufficient to claim the benefits of the Act, but they must be in physical possession of the same and the protection contemplated under the Act would not govern such cases. Other objections on merits were also taken. The trial Judge posed the question whether the petitioners were entitled to the benefits under section 9 of the Act. He referred to the evidence of one of the partners, who was none-else than the party receiver and according to this witness the company has stopped doing business from 1964 and that the business in timber or in manufacturing furniture for the purpose of which the four properties were taken on lease, has been suspended even from 1964. It was brought out in evidence that excepting for the 4th defendant and defendants 7 and 11 (defendant 11 being the advocate-receiver), all other defendants were outside Madras. The trial Court found that as a greater number of persons interested in the litigation were outside Madras, there was no possibility of these persons joining together at any point of time to start the business afresh. . On the ground that it was not possible to hold that the petitioners were actually carrying on business in any portion of the premises on the date of the filing of the ejectment suits, so that they could ask for a direction from the Court to the landlord to sell that particular property which may be required for the convenient enjoyment of the tenants, the trial Court held that

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