Section 12 of the Amending Act of 1983 does not require that the suit pending in the Civil Court has to be exclusively on the ground of bona fide requirement.

( 1 ) WHEN this matter came before the learned Single Judge, he felt that the correctness of the two single Bench decisions of this Court in Nanuram v. Pundlik, 1984 M. P. R. C. J. Note 77 and Bankimchandra Manilaji Sanghvi v. Radhakishan Nandraj Sharma 1984 M. P. L. J. 480 required consideration by a larger Bench. Accordingly honourable the Chief Justice constituted a Division Bench. The Division Bench also seems to have taken note of some more single Bench decisions of this Court on the point in question. A Division Bench decision of this Court in B. Johnson v. C. S. Naidu, 1985 Jab LJ 793 had also been referred to, and it felt that the question, which had been referred to the Bench was not directly in issue in Johnson's case (supra ). All the same, in view of the observations made therein, the Division Bench felt that to set at rest the controversy, the matter required further consideration by a still larger Bench. Accordingly this Full Bench came to be constituted.

( 2 ) BEFORE dealing with the question in controversy, it would be appropriate to refer to some relevant facts. Respondent Hemant Kumar has filed a suit sometime in the year 1976 against the present petitioner for eviction and arrears of rent, etc. The eviction of the petitioner-tenant was sought on different grounds contained in Section 12 (1) of the M. P. Accommodation Control Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act" ). On an application being filed by the plaintiff, the trial Court allowed the plaintiff to withdraw his claim of eviction on the ground of bona fide requirement only, with permission to proceed against the tenant in accordance with Section 23-A of the Act. It is the correctness of this order, which has been challenged by the petitioner-tenant.

( 3 ) HERE we may refer to the relevant amendments made in the Act. The one, with which we are directly concerned is the M. P. Accommodation Control (Amendment) Act, 1983 (No. 27 of 1983), which admittedly had come into force. By Section 2 of this Amending Act, the title 'm. P. Accommodation Control Act, 1961 (No. 41 of 1961)' was substituted as under :"an Act to provide for the regulation and control of letting and rent of accommodations, for expeditious trial of eviction cases on ground of "bona fide" requirement of landlords and generally to regulate and control eviction of tenants from accommodations and for other matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. "by Section 4 of the said Amending Act, some amendments were effected even in Section 12 of the Act as it then existed. Clauses (e) and (f) of Sub-Section (1) of Section 12 of the Act were omitted. Sub-Sections (4), (5) and (6) of Section 12 of the Act also stood omitted. Then there were some other amendments also. Yet another amendment by Section 8 of the aforesaid Amending Act was that after Section 23 of the Act, a new Chapter III-A with the heading "eviction of tenants on grounds of 'bona fide' requirement" was added. Section 23-A of this Chapter III-A is as under :"23-A. Special provision for eviction of tenant on ground of bona fide requirement - Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force or contract to the contrary, a landlord may submit an application, signed and verified in a manner provided in Rules 14 and 15 of Order VI of the First Schedule to the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (V of 1908) as if it were a plaint to the Rent Controlling Authority on one or more of the following grounds, for an order directing the tenant to put the landlord in possession of the accommodation, namely- (a) that the accommodation let for residential purposes is required 'bona fide' by the landlord for occupation as residence for himself or for any member of his family, or for any person for whose benefit the accommodation is held and that the landlord or such person has no other reasonably suitable residential accommodation of his own in his occupation in the city or town concerned. Explanation - For