ORDER:- This revision under the Tamil Nadu Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act 1960, raises a point about res judicata in the following circumstances:

2. The petitioner is the owner of a non-residential building in Arni under the tenancy of the respondent. In the year 1973, the petitioner moved the Rent Controller for eviction of the tenant, inter alia, on the ground that he required the building for housing a business of his own. The Rent Controller dismissed that petition on the preliminary point that prior to filing the petition no notice to quit under S. 106 of the Transfer of Property Act had been issued to the tenant. In this view, the Rent Controller did not have to go into the merits of any of the grounds of eviction raised in the petition.

3. Two or three years later, the petitioner came out with another eviction petition before the Rent Controller against the same tenant on the self-same grounds. This time the Rent Controller went into the merits and granted an order of eviction, holding that the petitioner required the building bona fide for his own business.

4. The tenant appealed, contending that the present proceedings were barred by res judicata under S.19 o