Landlord have job or business, tenant cannot refuse to vacate.

On an Appeal filed by Appellant/Tenant, Hukum Chandra,  Division Bench of Supreme Court , Justice R. Bhanumathi and Justice Indra  Banerjee granted huge relief to the Respondent/Landlord, Nemi Chand Jain, stating that tenant cannot refuse to vacate the suit premises/shop on the ground that landlord is in no bonafide need of the property because he or his family have another business(Hukum Chandra  vs. Nemi Chand Jain  C.A. No. 3827/2014)

            An appeal was filed by landlord in the First Appellate Court against the judgement of Trial Court wherein the trial court passed a judgement that son of landlord/ Appellant/ Petitioner was already doing an independent business and he was not unemployed and that he is in no bonafide need of property. The eviction suit was thus dismissed on the ground that the landlord has not established the genuine bonafide requirement. The First Appellate Court disagreed with the Trial Court judgement and  Appeal was allowed  by referring  to a judgement of High Court of Madhya Pradesh in Bishanswroop vs. Raj Kumar Kuchata & Ors (2015)  wherein the High Court of Madhya Pradesh held that it would be inappropriate to expect that the landowner should sit idle and not to perform any work till the suit for eviction is decided on the basis of bonafide requirement.

            The Second Appeal  was filed by Tenant/ Appellant. It was too was dismissed by the High Court of Madhya Pradesh holding that once landlords establishes the bonafide requirement by evidence on the standard of preponderances of probabilities under Section 12(1)(f) of the Madhya Pradesh Accommodation Control, 1961 Act, technicalities raised by the tenant should be ignored. The High Court also held that when additional document is produced by the tenant Under Order 41 Rule 27 of Code of Civil Procedure, 1098 to show, the landlord has obtained vacant possession from adjacent shop, that is no remedy availed for appellant/ tenant.

            Placing reliance on the case of Deena Nath vs. Pooran Lal (2001) 5 SCC 705, Appeal to the Supreme Court was preferred on the contention that the requirement of the landlord which has not been established in the case must continue to exist till the final decision of the court. The Appellant’s/tenant’s Ld. Counsel submitted that the trial court after consideration of various documents rightly held son of landlord is already carrying a business and cannot be unemployed, therefore the respondent has not established bonafide and genuine requirement of the suit premises for business purpose.

            The respondent's/landlord's, Ld. Counsel took the help of a citation from a case of Gaya Prasad vs. Pradeep Srivastava (2001)SCC 604 where in it is held that the crucial date for deciding the bonafide requirement of the landlord is the date on which the suit was filed for eviction and that the subsequent event cannot eclipse the bonafide requirement unless the subsequent event overshadows the requirement of the landlord.

            After hearing at length of both the parties the Hon’ble Supreme Court decided the Appeal in favour of the landlord and directed the tenant to vacate and handover the suit premises within three months.

 

FACT:

Appellant was a tenant in the premises of Nemi Chand Jain, the Landlord. On 22.1.1992 eviction suit was filed in the trial court on the ground of bonafide requirement of the premises to settle his son, Rajendra Kumar Jain. On 30.06.2004, the trial court dismissed the suit holding that Rajendra Kumar was already doing an independent business in the adjacent shop which was vacated by one of Nemi Chand's tenant, and therefore he is in no bonafide need of the property.

In the first Appeal, filed by Nemi Chand, the First Appellate Court allowed the appeal so did the Second Appellate Court, giving landmark decision that the landlord cannot sit idle till  the final adjudication of suit.