Preparations for business if can be treated as carrying on business.

This is an application to revise the order passed by the learned District Judge, Coimbatore, on 30th October, 1956, in C.R.P. No. 853 of 1955 on his file. The revision petition was filed before the District Judge under section 12 of the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1949.

The building to which these proceedings relate was purchased by the petitioner on 27th July, 1953. At that time, he was conducting a coffee-hotel under the name and style of “Ranjitha Vilas” in a rented building in Coimbatore. He said in his petition filed before the House Rent Controller, Coimbatore City, that he purchased the building “ for accommodating this business (of Ranjitha Vilas)” . Immediately after purchasing the building, he sent a notice to the respondent, who was in occupation of the building as a tenant, calling on him to surrender vacant possession. The respondent by reply declined to do so. The petitioner thereafter entered into a family settlement with his brother and son, under which the business known as “ Ranjitha Vilas” was made over to them. The petitioner, according to him, ceased, on the making of the family settlement, to have any interest in the business known as “ Ranjitha Vilas” . He then gave a fresh notice calling on the respondent to surrender vacant possession of the building. The respondent declined a second time to surrender possession. The petitioner thereupon instituted in the Court of the House Rent Controller, Coimbatore City, R.C.P. No. 106 of 1954, for eviction of the respondent.

The House Rent Controller held that, if the petitioner were interested in the business known as “Ranjitha Vilas”, he would not be entitled to apply for eviction under section 7 (3) (a) (iii) of the Act, and that, on the other hand, if he was not interested in that business, he would not be a person who could be said to be carrying on a business and would, in that event also, not be a person entitled to apply under section 7 (3) (a) (iii) of the Act. That was the only provision of the Act under which eviction was sought. The Controller further held that, because a building which belonged to the petitioner had fallen vacant subsequent to his purchase of this building and because the petitioner leased the other building to some other tenant without attempting to do business in such other building, the petitioner’s application could not be said to have been made in good faith. For those reasons, the learned Rent Controller dismissed the petitioner’s application for eviction.

The petitioner appealed to the Subordinate Judge, Coimbatore. The learned Subordinate Judge differed from the Rent Controller on the question whether the petitioner was entitled to apply for eviction under section 7 (3) (a) (iii) of the Act. The Subordinate Judge held that the petitioner could apply. But he agreed with the Rent Controller that the application had not been made bona fide. On that ground, he dismissed the appeal.

The petitioner applied in revision to the District Judge, Coimbatore, under section 12 of the Act. The District Judge held that he could not interfere with the finding of fact recorded by both the lower Courts on the question of good faith and, in that view, dismissed the petition.

Learned counsel for the respondent contends that the District Judge was right in declining to interfere with the finding of fact recorded by the lower Courts on the question of good faith and that, indeed, on the principles laid down in Sasivarna Thevar v. Ponnu1, the District Judge would have exceeded his jurisdiction, if he had interfered with the findings of facts recorded by the Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority on the question of good faith.

It is unnecessary, in the view that I take on the maintainability of the petition, that I express any opinion on the finding recorded by the Rent Controller and Appellate Authority on the question of good faith. I hold that, on the facts stated in the petition before the Rent Controller, the applicatio