1. These two revision petitions under S. 50 of the Karnataka Rent Control Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Act’) arise out of the same case, namely, HRC. 184 of 1969. The petitioner in CRP. 2311 of 1973 and the petitioner in CRP. 2322 of 1973 are respondents 2 and 1 respectively in HRC. 184 of 1269. For the sake of convenience parties will be referred to in this petition according to their respective; positions in the trial Court.
2. The petitioner-landlord filed the petition under S. 21(1) of the; Act for eviction of the respondents from the petition premises.
3. Of the several grounds on which he sought for eviction, this material one for purpose of these petitions is, that he reasonably and bona-fide requires the petition premises for his own ocupation for constructing a building thereon for his residence and business. His case is that he was residing in rented premises from which he was evicted under a decree for eviction obtained by his landlords.
4. The petition for eviction was resisted by respondents who pleaded, inter alia, that the petition premises had been leased to them permanently. However, they admitted that the first of them had sub-let to the second of them a portion of the petition premises.
5. Both the Courts below have held that a permanent lease can be brought about only by a registered deed; that as the respondents had not produced any such registered deed, their plea of permanent lease was untenable. Both the Courts below held that the landlord reasonably and bona-fide required the petition premises for his own occupation for constructing a building thereon for his residential and non-residential purposes and that greater hardship would be caused by refusing a decree for eviction than by granting such decree.
6. In these petitions, Mr. W.K Joshi learned Counsel for the respondents (the petitioners herein) urged that the landlord should have issued a notice under S. 106 of the Transfer of Property Act to respondent 2, the sub-lessee also, and that in the absence of such notice, no decree, for eviction could be made against him. In support of his contention, Mr. Joshi relied on Ss. 22 and 61 of the Act.
7. All that S. 22 of the Act provides is that where the interest of a tenant of any premises, is determined for any reasons, any sub-tenant to whom the premises or any part of thereof had been lawfully sub-let before the coming into operation of the Act, shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be deemed to become the tenant of the landlord on the same terms and conditions as he would have held from the tenant if the tenancy had continued. This section has obviously no application where the landlord has sought for eviction of both the tenant and the sub-tenant simultaneously. S. 61 of the Act merely provides that the prohibition against subletting does not apply to a case where sub-letting had taken place before the Act came into force. Thus, neither of these sections supports the contention of Mr. Joshi that the landlord should have issued to the sub-tenant a notice under S. 106 of the Transfer of Property Act, before filing a petition, against him, under S. 21(1) of the Act.
8. I do not see any good ground to dissent from the concurrent findings of the Courts below on the questions of the landlord bona fide and reasonably requiring the petition premises, and comparative hardship.
9. In the result, these two petitions fail and are dismissed. The respondents are granted one year's time from today to vacate the petition premises subject to the condition that they pay rent regularly. If they default paying rent, it will be open to the landlord to execute, the decree for eviction even before the expiry of the aforesaid period of one year.
10. It is needless to say that it is open to the tenant and the subtenant to remove the structures put up by them on the petition premises, before the expiry of the aforesaid period of one year.
11. In the circumstances of these petitions, the parties are directed to bear their own costs in this Court as well as in the Courts below.