Bonafide requirement of landlord not proved.

ORDER: The tenant, who was successful in resisting the eviction petition before the Rent Controller, unable to sustain the same when the same was challenged before the Rent Control Appellate Authority, is the revision petitioner.

2. The respondent, as landlord has filed the petition for eviction of the tenant on the grounds that the tenant had committed willful default in payment of rent; that he had used the building for the purpose other than that for which it was leased out; that the tenant had committed not only nuisance but also committed acts of waste and that the petition mentioned premises is required for the purpose of immediate demolition and reconstruction, which is bona fide.

3. As per the averments in the petition, the wilful default, said to have been committed by the tenant, is from August, 1990 till the date of filing of the petition as well as the non-deposit of the amount, in time as ordered in R.C.O.P.No.5 of 1991, which is a petition filed by the tenant seeking permission to deposit the rent. The different user, is that the building was let out for the purpose of running a school, whereas the tenant is using the same for the purposes like marriages and other activities not connected with education. The acts of waste, alleged is, that the tenant had pull down the thatched shed, and altered the same by putting up asbestos roofing without the consent of the landlord. The ground of demolition and reconstruction is sought, on the basis that the building is more than 80 years, which needs demolition and reconstruction.

4. The revision petitioner/tenant opposed the application, contending that the landlord refused to receive the rent originally, which resulted in filing an application in R.C.O.P.No.5 of 1991, which was allowed and in pursuance of the same, the rent is periodically deposited and therefore, there is no question of either default or wilful default; that occasionally, in holidays, the premises was given once for marriage function of the poor school staff, which practice also stopped thereafter; that the tenant had not committed any acts of waste or nuisance and what the tenant did was that the thatched shed owned by the school was not safe and therefore, it was removed substituting asbestos sheet, which should come within the meaning of improvement and not an act of waste and that the claim of the landlord for demolition and reconstruction is not bona fide, and this ground is invented by the landlord, only for the purpose of evicting the tenant, since the landlord has failed in his attempt to evict the tenant on any other grounds.

5. On the basis of the above contentions, the parities went on trial before the Rent Controller, and during the course of the trial, the petitioner examined himself as P.W.1 seeking support from Exs.P-1 to P-25. To nullify the above material, R.W.1 and R.W.2 have been examined, seeking support from 45 documents. The learned Rent Controller, while scanning the above materials and assessing the same from proper perspective, came to the conclusion that all the grounds alleged for the eviction of the tenant are false and they were aimed to evict the tenant, purposely. In this view, he constrained to dismiss the rent control application on 22.3.2001, which was under challenge in R.C.A.No.5 of 2001 before the Rent Control Appellate Authority viz., Sub Judge, Nagapattinam.

6. The appellate authority, upon perusing the documents and hearing the parties, felt that the Rent Controller had committed an error in not accepting the case of the landlord viz., wilful default. The materials disclosed, according to the appreciation of the appellate authority, that the tenant had committed default and that default is nothing but wiful default. As far as the other grounds are concerned, the Rent Control Appellate Authority, unable to deviate from the findings rendered by the Rent Controller and in this view, he confirmed the other findings. Because of one finding viz., wilful default went against t

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