Devan Ramachandran, J.:— This revision at the instance of a tenant involves a quotidian and ubiquitous claim of the landlord seeking eviction of his building on the ground of bona fide need. When hearing of this case proceeded, certain corollary issues relating to the validity of joint claims by more than one petitioners, operational impact and ambit of remand orders and the issue regarding dependency for the purpose of invoking the provisions relating to bona fide need under the Rent Control Act were impelled for consideration. These issues, though not the primary, became the focal point of the submissions of the learned counsel during the course of hearing of this revision and we have considered such submissions with great care and diligence.

2. The petitioner in this rent control revision petition is the tenant of the petition schedule building owned by the first respondent. The respondents 1 and 2 herein are the petitioners in R.C.P No. 12 of 2009 on the files of the Rent Controller/Munsiff Perambra. The rent control petition was filed by the respondents 1 and 2 seeking eviction of the petitioner herein on the ground that the second respondent requires the petition schedule building to commence a business to eke out a livelihood for himself.

3. The foundations of the claim of the respondents herein for eviction was that the second respondent does not have a building of his own and that he is dependent upon the first respondent, his brother, for accommodation and that the eviction of the appellant was necessitated on account of the fact that there was no other accommodation available.

4. The petitioner on the other hand contested the claim of the respondents and maintain that the need put forward by respondents 1 and 2 is not bona fide and also that their father Sri. Kunhammed was in ownership and possession of several other shop rooms, which could have been used by the second respondent herein for the purposes that was stated by him in the petition.

5. Initially, the court below allowed the rent control petition ordering eviction of the petitioner which was appealed against by him which led to a judgment by the First Appellate Court ordering a remand on the limited question as to whether the father of the respondents Sri. Kunhammed had other shop rooms and as to whether any of those shop rooms would be found available for the use of the second respondent herein. This was warranted because the petition averments indicated that the second respondent was actually living with his father and that he was, in fact, employed by his father in a medical shop owned and run by him. According to the petitioner, this singular fact proves his contentions that the second respondent is not dependent on the first respondent-his brother for accommodation because he is, admittedly, dependent on his father for all purposes, including for his livelihood and that the need shown by him to start a new business is only a ruse to obtain his eviction.

6. After the order of remand, an application was made by the respondents herein as I.A No. 33 of 2014 seeking amendment of the Rent Control Petition to state that even though the second respondent is employed in the medical shop run by his father, he bona fide intends to start a business of his own and that for such purpose he needs the petition schedule shop to commence his proposed business. It was also admitted therein that there are other shop rooms in the ownership of their father but that all of them have been rented out even prior to the filing of the present rent control petition. The respondents also asserted that the shop rooms in the ownership and possession of their father were not suitable for the storage of allopathic medicine, the business that the second respondent intends to start.

7. The court below on an assessment of all the pleadings and evidence available, allowed the rent control petition directing the petitioner herein to deliver vacant possession of the petition schedule shop room within a period of one month from the date of the order, failing which the respondents were granted entitlement to execute the order. The petitioner herein took up the matter before the Rent Control Appellate Authority by filing R.C.A No. 161 of 2014, which was also, however, dismissed confirming the orders of the Rent Control Court by order dated 18.1.2017 The petitioner has filed this revision petition assailing the judgment of the Rent Control Appellate Authority as well as the Rent Control Court ordering his eviction from the petition schedule shop room.

8. We have heard the learned counsel appearing for the appellant Sri. B. Krishnan and Sri. K.P Sudheer, learned counsel appearing for the respondents.

9. When the hearing of this appeal commenced, Sri. Sudheer, learned counsel appearing for the respondents raised a point of jurisdiction contending that since the appellant did not choose to challenge the order of remand made by the First Appellate Court, as per which all earlier findings of the Rent Controller were approved, save only the limited question as to whether the father of the respondents had any other room that could have been offered to the second respondent, the appellant cannot be allowed to maintain or argue this revision as if it is directed against the original order of the Rent Controller and that the appellant must be directed to confine only to issues dealt with by the courts below consequent to the order of remand, i.e, solely as regards the findings entered into by them regarding the rooms owned by the father and its unavailability or otherwise and nothing more.

10. Since Sri. Sudheer, learned counsel for the respondent, has raised an issue of some import, we have gone into and considered the question whether an order of remand which was not challenged by the parties could thereafter be questioned on its merits when an appeal is heard from a judgment passed consequent to such remand. To obtain an answer to this, one will have to understand the true nature of order of remand. More than a century ago, the Privy Council in Maharaja Moheshur Singh v. Bengal Government (7 Moo Ind App 283) had concluded that the orders of remand are interlocutory in nature. The opinion of the Privy Council which makes extremely interesting reading is extracted as under:

“We are not aware of any law or regulation prevailing in India which renders it imperative upon the suitor to appeal from every interlocutory order by which he may conceive himself aggrieved, under the penalty, if he does not so do, of forfeiting for ever the benefit of the consideration of the appellate court. No authority or precedent has been cited in support of such a proposition, and we cannot conceive that anything would be more detrimental to the expeditious administration of justice than the establishment of a rule which would impose upon the suitor the necessity of so appealing; whereby on the one hand he might be harassed with endless expense and delay, and on the other inflict upon his opponent similar calamities. We believe there have been very many cases before this Tribunal in which their Lordships have deemed it to be their duty to correct erroneous interlocutory orders, though not brought under their consideration until the whole cause had been decided, and brought hither by appeal for adjudication.”

11. This view was reaffirmed in Forbes v. Ameeroonissa Begum (10 Moo Ind App 340), wherein their Lordships stated without any reason of doubt that an order of remand is only in the nature of an interlocutory orders and that it did not purport to dispose of the case, thus entitling the appellant from insisting that the remand was erroneous or that the cause should have been decided in his favour. These judgments were noticed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, as early as in the year 1960, in Satyadhyan Ghosal v. Smt. Deorjin Debi (AIR 1960 SC 941), and after considering the various judgments of the Privy Council, including those mentioned above, held that interlocutory orders which have the force of a decree must be distinguished from other interlocutory orders which are a step towards decision of the dispute between the parties by way of a decree or a final order. After saying this, their Lordships concluded that orders or remand were only in the nature of interlocutory orders. The view of the court is available in paragraph 22 of the said judgment. Since we are of the view that this crystallises the law in this area, it is apposite to extract the relevant portion of the said paragraph, which is as under:

“22. In our opinion the order of remand was an interlocutory order which did not terminate the proceedings and so the correctness thereof can be challenged in an appeal from the final order.”

12. More than twenty years later, the Hon'ble Supreme Court again had an occasion to consider these issues in Kshitish chandra Bose v. Commissioner of Ranchi ((1981) 2 SCC 103) and same view as above was restated. Paragraphs 5 to 7 of the said judgment reads as under:

“5. Appearing for, the appellant, Mr. V.S Desai, submitted two points before us. In the first place, he urged that the first judgment of the High Court by which it remanded the matter to the trial Court for a finding on the question of title was legally erroneous inasmuch as the High Court exceeded its jurisdiction under S. 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure by reversing pure finding of fact given by the two Courts below on the question of adverse possession as also on the question of title.

6. Secondly, it was contended that even so the finding of the High Court on the question of adverse possession was given without at all considering the materials and evidence on the basis of which the two Courts had concurrently found that the plaintiff had acquired title by adverse possession. It is true that the plaintiff did not come up in appeal before this Court against the first judgment of the High Court obviously because the order passed by the High Court was not a final one but was in the nature of an interlocutory order as the case had been remanded to the Additional Judicial Commissioner and if the said Court had affirmed the finding of the trial Court, no question of filing a further appeal to the High Court could have arisen. Thus, the appellant could not be debarred from challenging the validity of the first judgment of the High Court even after the second judgment by the High Court was passed in appeal against the order of remand. In support of this contention, the counsel for the appellant relied on a decision of this Court in the case of Satyadhayan Ghosal v. Sm. Deorajin Debi, (1960) 3 SCR 590: (AIR 1960 SC 941) where under similar circumstances this Court observed as follows:

“In our opinion the order of remand was an interlocutory judgment which did not terminate the proceedings and so the correctness thereof can be challenged in an appeal from the final order.”

In coming to this decision this Court relied on an earlier decision in the case of Keshardeo Chamria v. Radha Kissen Chamria and vice versa, 1953 SCR 136: (AIR 1953 SC 23) where the same view was taken.

7. Mr. Sinha appearing for the respondent was unable to cite any authority of this Court taking a contrary view or overriding the decisions referred to above. In this view of the matter we are of the opinion that it is open to the appellant to assail even the first judgment of the High Court and if we hold that this judgment was legally erroneous then all the subsequent proceedings, namely, the order of remand, the order passed after remand, the appeal and the second judgment given by the High Court in appeal against the order of remand would become non est.”

13. This view has remained unaltered and unchallenged and the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the year 2005 accepted this proposition while deciding a matter relating to the effect of remand in Mangal Prasad Tamoli (Dead) by Lrs. v. Narvadeshwar Mishra (Dead) by Lrs. ((2005) 3 SCC 422).

14. In the light of the binding precedents as above, it is obvious that the order of remand can only be construed to be in the nature of an interlocutory order, which does not dispose of the case but is only a step towards final decision of the dispute between the parties. Viewed from this angle, it becomes ineluctable that the objection of the learned counsel for the respondents against consideration of the appeal on merits would no longer obtain justification. We, therefore, repel such contentions and proceed to consider the matter on its merits.

15. The facts involved in this case would show with a certain amount of certainty that the second respondent is residing with his father and that he is employed by him in his medical shop. The defence mounted by the petitioner against eviction is that since the second respondent already is dependent on his father, nothing prevents the father from offering a shop room in his possession, so as to enable the second respondent to start a business in allopathic medicine.

16. We see that the court below had deputed an Advocate Commissioner who has placed on record Ext.C1 report and Exts.C2, C3 and C4 plans. As is evident from these documents, the father of the respondents herein are in possession of seven shop rooms described as Items C, D, E, P, Q, R and S. The learned Commissioner has found that all these shop rooms had been leased out by the respondents' father even before the rent control petition was filed. He had found, during his inspection, that Schedule-C shop room was being used as a garage and that Schedule-D shop room was being used as a cement godown. He has reported with certainty that Schedule E, P, Q, R and S are all leased out and that several tenants are in occupation of the same. It is on this basis that the Rent Control Court, justifiably in our opinion, came to a conclusion that the shop rooms, in the ownership and possession of the father, cannot be offered to the second respondent for his proposed business by his father. The Rent Control Court has also entered into a conclusion that, in any event of the matter, going by Exts.C1 to C4 report and plans submitted by the Advocate Commissioner, the shop rooms in question owned by the father cannot be put to use for the purpose that the second respondent intends, namely, for the business of storage and sale of allopathic medicine because, the constructions of these rooms are all temporary in nature and are found to be sheds rather than concrete buildings that cannot be safely used for storage of medicines. We notice that these facts were admitted by RW1, namely the petitioner herein, while he was cross examined by the respondents.

17. Sri. B. Krishnan, learned counsel appearing for the revision petitioner began his submission by saying that the rent control petition was itself not maintainable since it is in the nature of a joint claim made by the respondents and not merely for the bona fide need of the second respondent. He says that it is clear from the pleadings in the rent control petition that the wholesale business of allopathic medicines is intended to be commenced by the second respondent and that the first respondent, who is his brother, has agreed to help him as a Pharmacist. Sri. B. Krishnan, therefore, says that the rent control petition was not intended merely for the benefit of the second respondent but it can be seen to be a joint claim made by them. We are afraid that these submissions, even assuming that it is a joint claim made by the respondents, would not impress us in view of the judgment of this Court reported in T.K Bhaskaran Nambi v. Puthiyottil Suresh Babu [2011 (3) KLT 876] wherein this Court has entered into a conclusive finding that petitions making joint claims are maintainable and that the bona fide need urged by only one among the joint claimants would not be a reason to reject such petitions. The said view, available in paragraphs 15 and 16 of the judgment is as under:

“15. It is true that on a strict construction of the provisions contained in sub-s.3 of S.11, it may appear that a “joint claim” (as the tenant would call it) for eviction is not contemplated under the Act. The conjunction employed in the latter part of the sub section is ‘or’ and not ‘and’. In grammatical parlance, a conjunction (eg: and, or, but, as, for, if, etc. is used “to join parts of sentences which, usually but not always, contain their own verbs”. Co-ordinating conjunctions (and, or, but) join two equal clauses, phrases or words. Subordinating conjunctions join a subordinating clause to a main clause. The co-ordinating conjunction used in the above statutory provision does not, in our view, envisage a situation where a landlord on getting vacant possession will be precluded from conducting business in the building either on his own or in partnership with others.

16. Undoubtedly a landlord can seek eviction of the tenant from the building for his own occupation or by any one of his dependents. This does not mean that the landlord cannot join hands with anyone of his dependents to start the venture. He is the master of his own affairs and he can decide how to manage the show. The expression “his own occupation” does not mean that the landlord should be physically present at his business premises twenty four hours a day and seven days a week.”

18. That being said, we see that the specific claim of the respondents is that the second among them requires the building owned by the first respondent and which is recently under the tenancy of the revision petitioner for his bona fide need. The respondents assert that the 1st among them is a pharmacist and that he will be in a position to help the 2nd appellant in such business. This is not a joint claim but shows the bonafide need of the 2 respondent and the readiness of the 1 appellant to help in running the proposed business. The need is not joint since the 1 respondent does not plead any need for himself and the need shown and impelled is that of the 2 respondent alone. We, therefore, cannot find ourselves to agree to the contentions of Sri. Krishnan this line.

19. As regards the bonafide need asserted by the 2 respondent is concerned, nothing on record, including the evidence that has been led by the petitioner, would in any manner, impeach this claim except that an attempt was made by the petitioner to show that this is only a desire and not a concrete proposal. The various judgments of this Court, one of them being J.C.R Trading (P) Ltd. v. Varghese [2009 (1) KLT 963] relating to the questions quad hoc bona fide need has now firmly settled the law in this area that it is only required for the petitioner, while filing the rent control petition, to show his need for the premises and to establish that it is bona fide and nothing more. In the case at hand, the evidence would show that the second respondent does not have a building of his own and that all the shop rooms owned by his father have already been let out. In such event, the need of the second respondent to start a business cannot be found to be anything other than bona fide. We, therefore, find no reason but to accept the conclusions of the court below.

20. Coming to the question of dependency, Sri. B. Krishnan is vehement in his submission that the second respondent, who is the brother of the first respondent, is not depended on the latter. He says this because the respondents admit in the rent control petition that the second respondent is living with his father and that he has been employed by the father in a medical shop run by him. Sri. B. Krishnan, therefore, says that the case of a dependency and the case of bona fide belief are merely a facade or ruse set up by the respondents to seek eviction of the revision petitioner one way or the other. We have considered this contention with a great amount of care. It is the specific case of the respondents that the second respondent is residing along with his father and that at present, he is working in a medical shop run by the father. However, this does not mean that the second respondent cannot start a business of his own and to earn an independent means of livelihood. The fact that he is living with his father would only show that the second respondent does not have a residence of his own. Obviously therefore, he is dependent on his father for his residential purposes but he is not dependent on his father for his income. Since the father has no other shop room available to be offered to his son, the second respondent can be definitely seen to be depended on his elder brother, who is willing to offer his shop to him, and such dependency for occupation is also a well recognized principle. [See for strength Ismail v. P.K Kesavan & Others (2004 (2) KLT 56)] where this Court has ineluctably concluded that one can be depended on his/her sibling for the purposes of accommodation, if not anything else. The same principles have been restated by this Court in Prathapan v. P.R Rama Warrier [2004 (2) KLT 559] and in Thalayodi Raghavan v. Kooraritavitta Kelappan & Others [2006 (1) KLT 1 (FB)]. The view of the Full Bench in Raghavan (supra), on the specific issue is distilled in the opinion recorded in paragraph 10 thereof, which is as under:

“10. xxxx It is trite that dependency is not financial dependency and in the context of the Act it is the dependency for a building. The mere fact that a person has a family of his own does not mean that he cannot be a member of the landlord's family, but the test is whether he is also treated as a member of the landlord's family and he is dependant on the landlord's family for the building. Unless on facts it is established that dependant has got other building of his own he can be dependant on another family provided he comes within the expression “member of the family dependant on him” within the meaning of S.11(3) of the Act.”

21. We are in respectful confirmation and agreement with the views and holdings of this Court in the above two judgments and we are bound by the binding precedent in Raghavan (supra). We are certain that dependency does not mean financial dependency and in the context of the Rent Control Act, it is considered as being dependent on the owner of the building who may be a member of the family for accommodation. In view of the above, we are guided to no other option but to dismiss this revision and to confirm the orders of the court below.

22. At this point of time and sensing that this Court is not inclined to grant the reliefs as prayed for by the revision petitioner, Sri. B. Krishnan makes a plea that his client be given some time to evict from the petition schedule building since, according to him, his client has no other means of livelihood other than the business that he is carrying on in the petition schedule building. Sri. K.P Sudheer, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondents submits in all fairness that the tenant can be given a reasonable time to evict himself. Sri. B. Krishnan makes a plea that his client be given a year's time which is opposed by Sri. K.P Sudheer on the ground that this is unreasonably long.

23. We have considered the rival submissions of the revision petitioner and the respondents with respect to the time that can be granted and we are of the view that a time of about 7 months from the date of receipt of this order would be sufficient for the revision petitioner to re-locate himself to a suitable shop room or to a suitable place and that it will not cause him too much of prejudice.

24. Sri. K.P Sudheer, learned counsel appearing for the respondents, though persistently requested that a shorter time alone be granted to the petitioner, finally agreed to the period we propose, so that all further acrimony and litigation between the parties can be completely avoided.

25. In such circumstances, we dismiss this rent control revision confirming the judgments of the Rent Control Court in R.C.P No. 12 of 2009 dated 17.10.2014 and that of the Rent Control Appellate Authority in R.C.A No. 161 of 2014 dated 18.01.2017 However, we deem it appropriate to grant the revision petitioner, as we have indicated above, a time of 7 months so as to enable him to re-locate to a suitable place.

26. We, therefore, direct the revision petitioner to file an affidavit before the Rent Control Court within a period of 15 days from the date of receipt of a copy of this order that he will evict himself from the petition schedule property on or before 31.03.2018 The revision petitioner shall also pay to the respondents occupation charges at the rate of Rs. 1,000/-, for continued occupation of the rent control schedule shop room, payable from the 1 of September, 2017 until such time as he evicts himself on or before 31.03.2018 He shall also depose in the affidavit, to be filed before Rent Control Court, that he shall make payment of such occupation charges at the rates that we have fixed herein and that he will continue to make payment of the same until such time as he evicts himself in terms of this order. The revision petitioner will also be liable to pay arrears of rent, if any, to the respondents within a period of one month from the date of receipt of a copy of this order and he shall also undertake to do so in the affidavit to be filed by him before the court below.

27. Needless to say, in the event the revision petitioner filing to file an affidavit as directed herein before the court below within the time granted herein, or if he fails in payment of the occupation charges, as we have determined herein, or of the arrears of rent, if any, the respondents would be at liberty to seek eviction of the revision petitioner by execution of the orders of the Rent Control Court and all benefits granted under this order to the revision petitioner would stand automatically vacated without any further orders.

28. The Rent Control Petition is thus ordered.