Shiv Dayal, J.

While protecting tenants against their eviction from residential and non-residential accommodation, the Madhya Pradesh Accommodation Control Act No. 23 of 1955 (hereinafter called the 1955 Act) permits suits for eviction in certain exceptional circumstances. Those exceptional grounds, e. g. default in payment of arrears of rent, causing of substantial damage, sub-letting, creating nuisance etc. are enumerated in Clauses (a) to (n) of Section 4, which is the prohibitory section. Under Clause (g), in the case of a residential accommodation, and under Clause (h), in the case of a non-residential accommodation, a landlord can sue for eviction of his tenant on the ground of his requirement. Section 4(h) runs thus:

''4. No suit shall be filed in any civil Court against a tenant for his eviction from any accommodation except on one or more of the following grounds;

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(h) in the case of non-residential accommodation, that the landlord genuinely requires the accommodation for continuing or starting his own business or that of any person of his family bona fide residing or to reside with him and that he or the aforesaid person of his family 'is not in occupation or any other accommodation' in the city or town for that purpose and if he was in occupation, has for sufficient reasons vacated it after the Act has been extended to that city or town:" (Underlining (here into) here, as else-where, is by me).

On a plain reading of this clause, if the person for whom eviction is sought is already in occupation of any other accommodation for his business in the same city or town the suit must be dismissed.

When the present second appeal was heard by me, sitting singly, it was admitted by the learned counsel for the plaintiffs that they were, and tad been on all material dates, in occupation of another shop, for their business, in the same locality in the city of Gwalior as the suit shop and, further, that they, had vacated in December 1956 a third shop which they had had in their occupation for the same business. However, it was vehemently urged that their suit could not be dismissed just because they had in their occupation another shop. The argument of the learned counsel may be put this way: the mere fact that the landlord is in occupation of another accommodation in which he carries on business is not by itself sufficient to dismiss the suit; he can still succeed by establishing that the accommodation in his occupation is not equivalent to the suit shop as regards suitability in all respects.

Reliance was placed on the decision in Motilal v. Badrilal MBLJ 1954 HCR 274. That was a case under Section 4(g) of the earlier enactment called the M. B. Sthan Niyantran Vidhan (Accommodation Control Act) No. 15 of 1950, (hereinafter called the 1950 Act), in which the phrase "no other accommodation" occurred. The question before me was whether the plain and unqualified meaning of the condition "is not in occupation of any other accommodation" in Section 4(h) of the 1955 Act could be departed from, and the words "reasonably equivalent as regards suitability in all respects to the required accommodation" could be read as implied in it. In view of the fact that the matter was of a general practical importance and of every day recurrence, I referred the case to my Lord the Chief Justice for being placed before a larger Bench. The questions before the Full Bench are these:

Where a landlord is in actual occupation of any other non-residential accommodation, whether of his own or belonging to a third person, is he entitled to bring a suit for ejectment of his tenant from a shop in the same city on the ground that his existing accommodation does not suit his purpose or that he requires the suit shop in order to expand his business?

If a landlord was in occupation of any other non-residential accommodation, whether of his own or belonging to a third person, and he vacated it without any sufficient reason after the 1955 Act had been extende