ORDER

Murlidhar, J. - This is a tenant's petition under Article 226 of the Constitution arising out of proceedings under section 21 of U.P. Act 13 of 1972.

2. The respondents no. 3 and 4, who are landlords, are residing in a tenanted house and applied under section 21 of the Act for release of the disputed premises on the ground of pressing need for their large family of 15 members for whom the accommodation in the tenanted premises was alleged to be wholly insufficient. The disputed premises are apparently in a bad state of repairs. The number of petitioner's family members is four and two of them, namely, the petitioner and his son are earning members. 1 he prescribed Authority allowed the application. In appeal by the petitioner, the District Judge after considering the number of the landlords' family members and the accommodation with them held that their requirement for additional accommodation was bona fide and genuine. Coming to the question of comparative hardship the District Judge noted the number of members of the tenants family and went on to observe :

"Admittedly, the tenant and his son carry on business and are earning members in their family. They also require an accommodation for their family. But they cannot continue residing in the premises in dispute because the same was in a highly dilapidated condition. Since the accommodation in dispute has got to be demolished and reconstructed the tenant has, per force, to make an alternate arrangement for an accommodation for his family. At the most the tenant could claim a part of the accommodation of the new building which the landlords propose to construct, in any case part of the same could be spared for the landlords after accommodating their family."

The sole point canvassed on behalf of the petitioner it that the District Judge has not compared hardship as was obligatory on him under the fourth proviso to Section 21(1)(a) and that to the extent he may be said to have done so he has been guided by the irrelevant consideration that the dilapidated condition of the house by itself was sufficient to rule out hardship for the tenant. Learned counsel for the respondent on the other hand urged that the condition of the premises may be a relevant factor for assessing hardship and that a total reading of the judgment of the District Judge shows that the finding was in fact based, besides the dilapidated condition, on the relative number of members of the two families and the fact that the petitioner and his son both were carrying on business and were earning members.

3. Having heard learned counsel for the parties I have come to the conclusion that the judgment of the District Judge cannot be read in the manner suggested on behalf of the respondents. That would amount to this Court reappraising the evidence and supplying its own reasons for the finding purporting to have been arrived at by the District Judge on other grounds. This is not permissible under Article 226 of the Constitution. If the decision is vitiated because of being founded on irrelevant considerations or application of a wrong principle it has to be struck down and cannot be saved by giving reasons which the authority concerned has not chosen to give. No doubt the number of family members and the fact of two of them being earning members are referred to in the judgment of the District Judge, but there is no advertence to the financial status of the tenant or his family or the-possibilities of their getting other accommodation. Moreover, the language of the judgment of the District Judge suggests that he treated the highly dilapidated condition of the premises to be the determining factor due to which the tenant "cannot continue residing in the premises" and had "perforce to make an alternate arrangement for an accommodation for his family." It seems clear that the dilapidated condition of the premises from which a tenant is evicted is virtually irrelevant for assessing the hardship likely to be caused to h