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TMI Blog1992 (3) TMI 357X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... was a term lease and the lease deed was registered. The lease deed was executed on 3-9-1973. The lease was for a period of 25 years with effect from 1-4-1973. The lease deed indicates that the lessee was already in possession by virtue of an earlier lease deed dated 28-7-1950 and the land had a theatre building thereon and that the lessee (petitioner) had remodeled the said old building. The lease deed of the year 1973 inter alia provided that on the expiration of the lease period, the theatre building also shall vest in the lessor (first respondent) absolutely without payment of any compensation and till then the lessee may hold and enjoy the demised premises without any lawful interruption by the lessor. The monthly rent was ₹ 650/ - and the lessee had to pay all taxes in excess of the prevailing rate of tax at the time of the execution of the lease deed and the lessee was liable to pay interest on arrears of rent at the rate of 12 1/2 per cent per annum. There was no clause anywhere providing for forfeiture of the lease. Thus the lease was to be in operation till 31-3-1998. 3. In the year 1989 the first respondent-landlord issued a quit notice and thereafter filed an ev ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d to the aforesaid decision in Bharath Petroleum Corporation's case. The importance of the question raised by the petitioner has been noticed by the learned single judge as well as by the Division Bench and we concur with those views that the question will have to be considered having regard to the substantial question of law involved and the importance of the matter, once for all. 5. In Bharath Petroleum Corporation's case the tenant was a term lessee with an option to renew the lease period. The tenant had exercised the said option, in the meanwhile the landlord initiated the proceedings seeking the eviction of the tenant under the provisions of the Act. The Bench assumes that the lease period was renewed by the exercise of the option by the tenant in the said case. Thereafter the Bench referred to an earlier decision of this Court in K. Gurusiddaiah v. A Vittal Bhat, AIR1984Kant66 therein the learned single Judge of this Court had held that before initiating proceedings under Section 21 of the Act the landlord should have a right of re-entry and in the case of a lease for a fixed term the landlord has no such right of re-entry before the expiry of the lease period. Th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he preamble shows that the Act is to provide for the control of rents and eviction, for the leasing of buildings, to control rates of hotels and lodging houses and for certain other matters, in the State of Karnataka. Thus the scope of the Act has to be understood with reference these objectives -- (i) control of rents, (ii) control of evictions, (iii) leasing of buildings, (iv) controlling the rates of hotels and lodging houses, and (v) certain other matters, which would certainly be incidental to these specified subjects. 7. Control of rents is sought primarily by some of the following provisions -- (i) Section 14 which provides for the fixation of fair rent of any building. Along with this Section, Sections 15 to 18 are to be read which provide as to when the rent is to be increased or reduced, prohibition against imposing a condition for the grant, renewal or continuance of tenancy regarding the sale or hire of furniture, prohibition against taking advance rent by any means except the advance specifically permitted by the Act, etc. (ii) Section 19 provides a machinery whereby tenant may deposit the rent in the Court in certain cases either when the landlord refuses to accept ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of control of evictions is dealt in Part V containing Sections 21 to 31 of the Act. The basic provision is Section 21 in this regard. The heading of this Part V reads Control of eviction of tenants and obligation of landlords . We are concerned in the instant case with the scope of Section 21 and its scope will have to be understood in the background in which it is enacted and the setting in which it is placed, in case there is any doubt about it. Section 21(1), to the extent it is relevant here, reads thus : 21. Protection of tenants against eviction.-- (1) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any other law or contract, no order or decree for the recovery of possession of any premises shall be made by any Court or other authority in favour of the landlord against the tenant : Provided that the court may on an application made to make an order for the recovery of possession of a premises on one or more of the following grounds only, namely :-- Clauses (a) to (p) are omitted here. Clauses (a) to (p) enumerates the grounds enabling the landlord to recover possession of the premises from the tenant. 9. A plain reading of the opening sentence of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tely taken away by the main provision of S. 21(1) because the said right is a right, which is contrary to the ban imposed by the section. The ban would operate at the time recovery of possession is to be sought and it will be lifted only when any one of the grounds stated in clauses (a) to (p) are proved. The grounds stated in clauses (a) to (p) of the proviso do not enlarge the rights of the landlord but give him cause, or causes of action to seek possession of the premises. 11. Strong reliance was placed on the decision of the Supreme Court in Dhanapal Chettiar's case to contend that all rights and obligations between the landlord and the tenant under a contract stood obliterated by virtue of Rent Control Act and this obliteration would result in erasing the guaranteed period in a term lease. In other words, it was contended that the clause giving a fixed period of lease to the tenant has no existence in law so as to be recognised and respected while considering the application of Section 21(1) of the Act. As and when a landlord is able to show that any of the grounds stated in clauses (a) to (p) are available, the tenant can be evicted in spite of the lease being for a fi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ve to be given. Or, it may be, that a landlord will be well advised by way of abundant precaution and in order to lend additional support to his case, to give a notice to his. tenant intimating that he intended to file a suit against him for his eviction on the ground mentioned in the notice. But that is not to say that such a notice is compulsory or obligatory or that it must fulfil all the technical requirements of Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act. Once the liability to be evicted is incurred by the tenant, he cannot turn round and say that the contractual lease has not been determined. The action of the landlord in instituting a suit for eviction on the ground mentioned in any State Rent Act will be tantamount to an expression of his intention that he does not want the tenant to continue as his lessee and the just relationship of lessor and lessee will come to an end on the passing of an order or a decree for eviction. It is in these circumstances, again, the Supreme Court observed at page 1750 : It is true that the Rent Act is intended to restrict the rights which the landlord possessed either for charging excessive rents or for eviction of tenants. But i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ny landlords who are also compared to some big tenants sometimes weaker section of the society. As for example a widow or a minor lets out a family house in a helpless situation to tide over the financial difficulty and later wants a fair rent to be determined. Again suppose for instance in a city there is an apprehension of external aggression, severe internal disturbances or spread of epidemics. A man in possession of his house may go to another town letting out his premises to a tenant financially strong and of strong nerves at a rate comparatively much lower than the prevailing market rates. Later on, on the normalization of the situation as against the agreed rate of rent he approaches the Building Controller for fixing a fair rent in accordance with a particular State Rent Act. Why should she or he be debarred from doing so. The Statute gives him the protection and enables the Controller to intervene to fix a fair rent as against the term of contract between the parties. In a large number of cases it is the tenant who gets this protection. But in some as in the case of Raval the landlord needs and gets the protection. The above observations were made in the context of the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... continues to be so even thereafter. That being so, making out a case under the Rent Act for eviction of the tenant by itself is sufficient and it is not obligatory to found the proceeding on the basis of the determination of the lease by issue of notice in accordance with Sec. 106 of Transfer of Property Act. Here again the observations of the Supreme Court were only, with reference to the mode of determining the lease by issuance of a notice in accordance with Section 106 of the T.P. Act. Even after the termination of the relationship of landlord and tenant created by the contract, the relationship continues until the Court orders eviction of the tenant and therefore issuance of notice under Section 106 is an unnecessary exercise, is the Clear ratio of this decision of the Supreme Court. It is not possible to read this decision as laying down the principle that the entire contractual relationship stands substituted by the statutory relationship under the Act for all purposes and that the Rent Control Act has given a go-bye to the concept of lease and the interest that is created by a valid contractual lease. 13. 'Lease' is defined under S. 105 of the T.P. Act, whic ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of terminating the contract once again by giving a notice to quit to such a lessee who continued in possession after the determination of the lease. At page 1524, it was held that, if the contract once came to an end there was no question of terminating the contract over again by a fresh notice . As already noticed it was a case where the lease period came to an end and thereafter the tenant continued in possession under the protective wing of the East Punjab Urban Restriction Act. In Dhanapal Chettiar's case this was referred by the Supreme Court. The larger Bench in Dhanapal Chettiar's case observed that it was unnecessary to determine the lease in accordance with the T.P. Act, as a condition precedent to the starting of a proceeding under the State Rent Act for eviction because such a determination of the lease in accordance with the T.P. Act is unnecessary and a mere surplusage because the landlord cannot get the eviction in spite of such a determination of the lease. This observation of the Supreme Court in Dhanapal Chettiar's case necessarily implies that the determination of lease referred therein is a determination by a notice by the landlord under the provisio ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e, and one is to repeat what I have very often said before, that every judgment must be read as applicable to the particular facts proved, or assumed to be proved, since the generality of the expressions which may be found there are not intended to be expositions of the whole law, but governed and qualified by the particular facts of the case in which such expressions are to be found. The other is that a case is only an authority for what it actually decides. I entirely deny that it can be quoted for a proposition that may seem to follow logically from it. Such a mode of reasoning assumes that the law is necessarily a logical Code, whereas every lawyer must acknowledge that the law is not always logical at all . It is not a profitable task to extract a sentence here and there from a judgment and to build upon it. 15. A few more decisions require to be referred. In Mangat Rai v. Kidar Nath, [1981] 1 SCR 476 , there is a reference to Dhanapal Cheltiar's case. But actually the eviction of the tenant was sought on the ground that the tenant had committed default in the payment of rent. It was not a case of any term lease. Though the tenant had committed default he had deposited ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ct and, (2) under the Transfer of Property Act, is without any substance. This was cited to point out that the tenant was not entitled to double protection, one under the I. P. Act and another under the Rent Act. Here again the Supreme Court was not concerned with the availability of the right in the landlord to evict the tenant before the expiry of the lease period. The case is an authority for the proposition that if the tenant is liable to be evicted then his eviction will have to be only under the provisions of the Rent Control Act and in such a situation the tenant cannot seek protection elsewhere except the protection available to him under the Rent Control Act. 17. Another decision wherein Dhanpal Chettiar's case is referred is reported in K. K. Krishnan y. M. K. Vijaya Raghavan [1981] 1 SCR 139 . Under the relevant Kerala Act a tenant was liable to be evicted, if the tenant after the commencement of the Act sublet the premises without the consent of the landlord and if the lease did not confer him any right to sublease. Supreme Court said that the right to sublease will have to be conferred on the tenant either at the time of lease or subsequently. But a tenant c ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e tenant to continue to remain in possession of the premises, hoping for an early death of the tenant, so that on the death of a tenant he can immediately proceed to institute the proceeding for recovery and recover possession of the premises as a matter of course, because the heirs would not have any right to remain in occupation and would not enjoy the protection of the Act. This could never have been intended by the Legislature while framing the Rent Acts for affording protection to the tenant against eviction that the landlord would be entitled to recover possession, even no grounds for eviction as prescribed in the Rent Acts are made out. The same reasoning can be applied to the facts of the instant case before us. If the landlord is permitted to evict the tenant even before the expiry of the lease period by resorting to the provisions of the Act the resultant mischief will be irreparable. Many of the commercial and industrial premises are obtained by the entrepreneurs on term lease and huge investments are made on buildings and machineries on the assurance that such a tenant is secured in possession of the leasehold during the lease period. If, however, a landlord can evi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d premises and the tenancy rights both in respect of residential premises and commercial premises are heritable. The heirs of the deceased tenant in the absence of any provision in the Rent Act to the contrary will step into the position of the deceased tenant and all the rights and obligations of the deceased tenant including the protection afforded to the deceased tenant under the Act will devolve on the heirs of the deceased tenant. The tenant's estate or interest in the tenanted premises is a valuable right and, if so, such an estate or interest cannot be defeated by interpreting the Act in a particular manner when the words used in the Act specifically do not provide for the taking away of the estate or interest vested in the tenant. One more decision which is very relevant is the one reported in Modern Hotel, Gudur v. K. Radhakrishnaiah, [1989] 2 SCR 725 . The tenant therein was a term lessee. An action for eviction was initiated against the tenant in the plea that the tenant had failed to pay the rent for a certain period. There was an order of eviction which was affirmed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court held that the action was not maintainable because : ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ny other decision which is quite relevant to the question raised before us. The meaning attributed to the non obstante clause in sub-section (1) of Section 21 of the Act in Bharath Petroleum Corporation's case is not correct; the overriding effect of the clause in sub-section (I) of S. 21 of the Act is limited to the subject referred to immediately by the words following. In other words, even if any other law or contract provides for recovery of possession the same shall be of no effect and the eviction can be made only on the grounds stated in clauses (a) to (p) of the proviso. This indicates that the landlord should have a right to recover possession and that right cannot be held to vest in him during the period of the term lease unless there is something in the lease deed which provides for the determination of the lease; in such a situation, even after the determination of the lease in the manner stated in the term lease, the recovery of possession will have to be made only by recourse to Section 21(1). 22. We are clearly of the opinion that the view expressed in Bharath Petroleum Corporation's case is not correct and, therefore, the same is overruled. 23. The ent ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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