Maintainability of petition for eviction of residential building.

1. This is a petition filed by a tenant to revise the order of the Appellate Authority functioning under the Tamil Nadu Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960, Tamil Nadu Act 18 of 1960, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) directing the eviction of the petitioner herein from the premises in question. Most of the facts are not in controversy. The respondent filed a petition under the provisions of the Act for eviction of the petitioner herein on three different grounds. One was that he bona fide required the premises for his own occupation; the second was that the petitioner has committed wilful default in the payment of the rent and the third was that the petitioner had put the property to a use different from the one for which it was leased out. The petitioner denied all the three grounds. The Rent Controller rejected all the three grounds, and dismissed the petition for eviction filed by the respondent herein. Thereupon, the respondent preferred an appeal to the Appellate Authority, prescribed under the Act. Before the Appellate Authority the finding of the Rent Controller on the second and third grounds was not challenged. The only ground on which the appeal was prosecuted was that the respondent herein bona fide required the premises for his own occupation, that he was living in a rented premises and that he had no other building in the place in question. The Appellate Authority accepted this contention of the respondent herein and ordered the evict on of the petitioner from the premises in question. It is this order of the Appellate Authority, that is sought to be revised in the present Civil Revision Petition filed under S. 25 of the Act.

2. Before proceeding with the question of law that was sought to be raised before this Court, I must refer to the nature of the defence put forward by the petitioner herein in respect of this particular ground for eviction, namely the respondent herein bona fide required the building for his own occupation. The contention that was advanced was that the building was let out for residential as well as for nonresidential purposes, and therefore, the respondent herein cannot obtain possession of the premises for his own residential purpose. This contention was rejected by the Appellate Authority following the decision of a Full Bench of this Court in Dakshinamurthi v. Thuja Bai 1952 I M.L.J. 390=L.W. 242 (F.B.). That judgment held that for the purpose of finding out whether the purpose for which a building was let out was residential or non-residential the dominent purpose has to be determined, and if the dominent purpose was residential, the fact that a part of the premises was put to non-residential use will not change the character of the original purpose, and vice versa. The learned counsel for the petitioner challenges this conclusion. Mr. M.R. Narayanaswami, learned counsel for the petitioner, did not contend that the decision of the Appellate Authority is not in accordance with the Full Bench decision of this court referred to already. On the other hand, the learned counsel had to concede that the law laid down by the Full Bench of this court is to that effect only and the Appellate Authority simply followed the Full Bench decision. However, what he contends is that in view of the subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court the Full Bench decision is no longer good law, since according to the learned counsel for the petitioner the Supreme Court has held that in such cases, where a building had been let out for residential as well as non-residential purpose, the Rent Controller has no jurisdiction at all under the Act to order eviction of the tenant. Therefore, I have to consider in the present Civil Revision Petition the soundness or otherwise of this contention.

3. In this particular case, the Appellate Authority as far as the purpose of the tenancy is concerned, has recorded the following finding:—

“It is clear that the building was taken by him (the petitioner-tenan