Proper opportunity for inferring malafides.

This is a Civil Revision Petition which has been filed against the order made in revision under section 12-B of the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act passed by the learned District Judge of South Malabar in C.R.P. No.10 of 1952.

The facts are: The respondent before us A.V. Mammad has been carrying on business in a rented building belonging to one Aydross. Subsequently in 1950 he purchased a non-residential building, which is the subject-matter of controversy, for Rs.5,500, for doing business. Immediately after the purchase he caused a lawyer notice to be issued to the petitioner before us who was occupying that nonresidential building as a tenant carrying on business therein to surrender possession. The petitioner sent a reply agreeing to pay the stipulated rent but declined to surrender possession of the premises. I have just now mentioned that the respondent before us was occupying a non-residential building. The landlord of that building on the foot of arrears of rent for two months took out proceedings in the Rent Controller’s Court and obtained an eviction order. Thereupon this respondent before us has sought the eviction of the petitioner before us on two grounds, viz., that this petitioner before us has sub-let the premises to two other persons without his permission and was therefore liable to be evicted under section 7(2)(ii)(a) and secondly, that the landlord required the premises for his own business under section 7 (3) (iii). Those two persons did not oppose the application and admitted that they were sub-lessees of portions of the premises under the petitioner before us. The petitioner herein contended that there was no sub-letting but that he was in possession of the entire building. In regard to the second ground, viz., that the premises were required for the business of the landlord, the 1st respondent in the lower Court (petitioner herein), contended that the order of eviction passed against his landlord in respect of the building of which he the landlord was the tenant was obtained collusively and therefore there were no bona fides in this claim and that the landlord was not entitled to eviction.

In regard to the first ground all the Courts below, viz., the Rent Controller, the appellate Court and the District Judge have come to the conclusion that the sub-letting has not been made out to their satisfaction and therefore it does hot concern us here.

Then in regard to the second ground, the Rent Controller and the appellate Court found that the Respondent herein had managed to get an order of eviction passed against him under Exhibit P-6 by defaulting in the payment of rent and therefore the claim of the landlord was not bona fide under section 7(3)(a)(iii), proviso (ii)(e) and dismissed the petition of the landlord. The learned District Judge in revision held that the claim of the landlord was bona fide so far as this application was concerned and ordered eviction. Hence this Civil Revision Petition.

The point for consideration is whether the claim of the landlord was bona fide.

The term ‘bona fide’ has been explained in “The Law Lexicon of British India” by Mr.P. Ramanatha Aiyar (M.L.J. Publication) as follows:

“In good faith; without fraud or deception; honestly, as distinguished from bad faith; openly; sincerely. That we say is done bona fide which is done really, with a good faith, without any fraud or deceit.-(Tomlin’s Law Dictionary).”

This term has also been the subject-matter of judicial discussion with reference to the Malabar Tenancy Act (section 20) where the phrase “the landlord requires the holding bona fide for his own cultivation”had to be interpreted. In S.A.No.42 of 1939 (Raman Nayar v. Kesavan Embrandri) (unreported case) Venkataramana Rao, J., construed it as follows:

“The language used is ‘requires the holding bona fide’. A mere desire on the part of the land-lord even if bona fide to have the land for his own cultivation is not enough and in coming to a conclusion on the que