No direction for eviction can be given on the ground of insufficiency of the premises.

V. Ratnam, J.

1. The landlord is the petitioner in these civil revision petitions. The premises bearing door No. 34, Ponnappa Mudali St., Madras 7 belongs to him. One Duraikannu, the husband of the respondent in these civil revision petitions, was originally a tenant in occupation of the premises and after his death, the respondent became a tenant on a monthly rental of Rs. 47.50, the tenancy being according to the English calendar month from the 1st to the end of every month. The landlord has a daughter and she is living in a rented premises in Mannadi with her husband. Stating that she had been asked to vacate the premises in her occupation in a month's time and claiming that the landlord or his daughter does not occupy any other building of their own and that the landlord bona fide required the premises in the occupation of the tenant for his daughter's occupation, the landlord filed H.R.C. No. 3042 of 1980 before the Rent Controller (XIV Judge, Court of Small Causes), Madras under Section 10(3)(a)(i) of the Tamil Nadu Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act XVIII of 1960, as amended by Tamil Nadu Act XXIII of 1973 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act').

2. The tenant, while accepting the tenancy disputed the bona fide requirement of the landlord for occupation by his daughter and further put forward the plea that the landlord was not living in a rented premises, but in his own house at Arasappa Mudali St., Madras 7, and that would disentitle him from maintaining the application for eviction.

3. The landlord also filed H.R.C. No. 3040 of 1980 before the Rent Controller (XIV Judge, Court of Small Causes), Madras, under Section 10(2)(i) of the Act praying for an order of eviction against the tenant on the ground that she was irregular in the payment of rents and was in arrears from 1st August, 1979 till 30th June, 1980 at the rate of Rs. 47-50 and that such non-payment amounted to wilful default in payment of rents.

4. In the counter filed in that application, the tenant, while admitting the tenancy, stated that the rents had been regularly paid and that therefore no arrears of rent. The wilful default attributed to her was also denied. In addition, the tenant also stated that certain repairs to the premises had been effected by her at her expense and a portion of the rents had been spent towards that. The further case of the tenant was that property tax dues to the Corporation of Madras payable by the landlord remained unpaid in respect of which a distrait notice was issued, that the tenant was constrained to remit the taxes from the second half year of 1975-76 to the second half year of 1978-79 and that having regard to the payment of the property tax, there was no question of any default in the payment of rents, much less wilful default.

5. Since the premises in respect of which an order of eviction was sought was the same and the parties were the same, though the grounds on which an order of eviction was sought were different, H.R.C. No. 3040 and 3042 of 1980, were tried together. On behalf of the landlord, Exs.P1 to P8 were marked and the landlord was examined as P.W. 1, while, on behalf of the tenant, Exs.R1 to R12 were relied upon and the tenant and her son were examined as R.W. 1 and 2. On a consideration of the oral as well as the documentary evidence, the learned Rent Controller was of the view that the tenant had committed wilful default in the payment of rents and that the requirement of the landlord under Section 10(3)(a)(i) of the Act on behalf of his daughter was not bona fide. In this view, in H.R.C. No. 3040 of 1980, an order for eviction was passed, while H.R.C. No. 3042 of 1980 was dismissed. Aggrieved by the dismissal of H.R.C. No. 3042 of 1980, the landlord preferred an appeal in H.R.A. No. 1117 of 1981 while the tenant, aggrieved by the order of eviction passed in H.R.C. No. 3040 of 1980 preferred an appeal in H.R.A. No. 1020 of 1981 before the Appellate Authority (III Judge, Court of Small Causes), Madra