Meaning of th expression building.

The respondent, who is the manager of a joint Hindu family owns a building at Theni which bears Union Nos. 320, 321 and 322. Nos. 320 and 322 are shops situate on either side of No. 321 which is a residential portion occupied by the family ; all the three portions are integrally connected. The shop bearing Union No. 320 was leased out to the petitioner in 1941 and since then he has been in occupation of it carrying on business in electrical goods. The family of the respondent is running a business called Gopal Radio Service in shop bearing No. 322 that is a business dealing in electrical goods and in renting out loud-speaker arrangement. The brother of the respondent, a qualified radio mechanic, started a business, which is now found to be a joint family business in repairing radios, etc., under the name of “Wirless India”. As the accommodation available in shop No. 322 was found insufficient, he took up on lease a building in another part of Theni. Stating that shop No. 322 was necessary for the business carried on by the younger member of the family, the respondent filed a petition for the eviction of the petitioner under section 7 of the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act. The petitioner resisted the application on various grounds, which it is now unnecessary to set out in detail. Nor is it necessary to refer to the chequered career of the petition. The Rent Controller directed eviction, while the appellate authority set aside that order. On revision, the learned Additional District Judge of Madurai held that the premises were required bona fide as additional accommodation for the purpose of the business of the family of the respondent and he directed the eviction of the tenant. This Revision Petition challenges the propriety of that order.

For the petitioner it was first contended that the learned District Judge had no jurisdiction to convert a case which fell under section 7 (3) (a) (iii) of the Act that is a claim for bona fide occupation by a owner of another building, into one under section 7 (3) (c) of the Act, which related to a claim for additional accommodation in the same building. It was urged that the case should be decided only under the former provision and that as the younger brother of the respondent was already in occupation of a non-residential building as a tenant, no order for eviction should be passed against the petitioner. I cannot agree that the petition was filed only under section 7 (3) (a) (iii). The respondent was in occupation of a substantial portion of the building ; when he required for personal occupation the other portion as well, the case should be dealt with as one for additional accommodation under section 7 (3) (c), which specifically provides for such a case.

It was however argued that as shop No. 320 occupied by the tenant would be a ‘building ‘within the meaning of the term as defined in section 2 (1) of the Act section 7 (3) (c) will not apply, as it contemplated a case of obtaining of additional accommodation of a part of a building, the owner already occupying another portion of the same building. In support of the contention reliance was placed on the decision of Mack, J., in Arunachala Naicker v. Gopal Stores1, where the learned Judge held that a landlord doing business in one building could not evict a tenant carrying on business in another portion of the building, as the portions in which they were respectively carrying on business should be held to constitute separate buildings under the Act, though they structurally formed part of the same building. That decision proceeded on the basis that if the landlord and tenant were in occupation of different buildings as defined in the Act, the operation of section 7 (3) (c) of the Act would be excluded and that the portion let out and that occupied by the landlord would form distinct buildings. A contrary view was however expressed by Panchapakesa Ayyar, J., in Ganapathi Panidan v. Sheik Mohammad2. It was held in th