REPORTAB LE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CIVIL APPEAL NO.6261 OF 2009 (Arising out of SLP (C) No. 6979 of 2009)

N. Eswari                                 …Appellant W/o Adhinarayana Rao

VERSUS

K. Swarajya Lakshmi              …Respondent W/o K.V.L.N.A. Sastry (Late)

        J U D G M E N T

TARUN CHATTERJEE,J. 1. Leave granted.

2. We are invited in this appeal to decide whether the High  

Court was justified, in the facts and circumstances of the present  

case in its revisional jurisdiction, in re-appreciating the facts and  

setting aside the order of the Rent Controller, Vijayawada dated  

31st of October, 2001 and the order of the Appellate Authority,  

Vijayawada dated   21st of December, 2005.

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3. In our view, the High Court was not justified in interfering  

with  the  concurrent  findings  of  fact  arrived  at  by  the  Courts  

below.   

4. The  appellant  is  a  tenant  in  respect  of  the  premises  in  

question  since  1982.  In  or  about  the  year  2000,  the  

landlady/respondent herein filed an application for eviction of the  

tenant/appellant  under  Section  10(3)(a)(i)(a)  read  with  Section  

10(2)(i) of A.P. Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act,  

1960  (in  short,  “the  Act”)  before  the  Rent  Controller  on  the  

ground  that  the  landlady/respondent  bonafide  required  the  

premises in question and also the tenant/appellant was a willful  

defaulter in payment of rent.   

5. Parties adduced evidence and finally, the Rent Controller,  

Vijayawada,  by  its  final  order  dated  31st of  October,  2001,  

rejected  the  eviction  petition  inter  alia holding  that  the  

landlady/respondent had failed to prove that the tenant/appellant  

was a defaulter in payment of rent and in so far as the bonafide  

need of the premises in question was concerned, it was held that  

the landlady/respondent had two houses at Hyderabad and the  

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landlady was residing in  Vijayawada  with  her  family  members  

consisting of one son and two daughters for the last 31 years.   

6. Feeling aggrieved, an appeal was carried to the Appellate  

Authority,  namely,  Principal  Senior  Civil  Judge-cum-Appellate  

Authority, Vijayawada. The Appellate Authority also affirmed the  

findings of  the Rent Controller,  Vijayawada and dismissed the  

appeal.  A Civil Revision Petition was then filed in the High Court  

of  Andhra  Pradesh  at  Hyderabad  by  the  landlady/respondent  

against  the  aforesaid  concurrent  orders  of  rejection  of  the  

eviction petition and by the impugned order, the High Court had  

set  aside  the  concurrent  orders  of  rejection  and  directed  the  

eviction of the tenant/appellant.   

7.  Feeling  aggrieved  by  the  impugned  order  of  the  High  

Court, this Special Leave Petition has been filed at the instance  

of  the tenant/appellant,  which on grant  of  leave, was heard in  

presence of the learned counsel for the parties.  

8. So far as the ground of willful default was concerned, both  

the Rent Controller as well as the Appellate Authority held that  

there was no willful default in payment of rent for the months of  

December, 1998 and January, 1999.  So far as this ground was  

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concerned,  the  High  Court  also  observed  that  the  learned  

counsel for the landlady/respondent, not having urged the said  

ground i.e. willful default in payment of rent, the findings of the  

two  Courts  below  must  be  affirmed.   So  far  as  the  case  of  

bonafide requirement of the landlady/respondent was concerned,  

the  High  Court  has,  by  the  impugned  order,  set  aside  the  

concurrent findings of fact arrived at by the Courts below.   

9. In our view, the High Court was not justified in the present  

case to interfere with the concurrent orders of the Courts below  

rejecting  the  plea  of  bonafide  requirement  of  the  

landlady/respondent.  The only ground on which the High Court  

had set aside the concurrent orders of the Courts below is that  

since the husband of  the landlady had retired from service in  

1982 and was residing at Hyderabad and she was not having  

any  other  residential  house  at  Vijayawada  where  she  was  

planning  to  settle,  it  must  be  held  that  the  requirement  was  

bonafide.  

10. In Paragraph 16 of the impugned Judgment, the High Court  

has given the reasons for setting aside the concurrent orders of  

rejection of the eviction petition.  We feel it proper in this case to  

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reproduce the said part  of the impugned order,  which runs as  

under :-

“16. The evidence of P.W. 1 would go to show that   he was retired from service in 1982, that at present  he is residing at Hyderabad, that he was not having  any other residential house at Vijayawada and he is  planning  to  settle  at  Vijayawada.  When  a  suggestion was given to the effect that with a view  to evict the tenant so that he would get higher rent,   the  present  petition  was  filed,  but  the  same was  denied.  R.W.  1,  who is  no other  than  the  tenant  stated that she is a tenant right from 1986 and she  never committed any default  in payment of  rents.   Having come to the Court, it is for the petitioner to   establish that the premises in question is required  for bona fide purpose. P.W. 1 admitted that he has  got two own houses at Hyderabad and at present   the  landlady  is  staying  with  her  children  at   Hyderabad,  but  at  the same time,  admittedly,  the  landlady is not having any residential  premises at   Hyderabad. She is aged about 70 years. Since the   children of  landlady are  residing at  Hyderabad,  it   cannot be said that there would be no one to look   after  her.  Landlady  is  the  best  judge  for  his   residential requirement. It is for the landlady to look  after herself at that age.  She can chose any place  where  she  wanted  to  settle  down  for  variety  of   reasons.”   

11. On a bare perusal of these findings of the High Court,  it  

appears that PW1 has categorically admitted that he had  

got two houses of his own at Hyderabad and at present,  

the  landlady/respondent  is  staying  with  her  children  at  

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Hyderabad  but  since  she  has  no  residential  house  at  

Vijayawada and her age is about 70 years, she wants to  

settle  herself  in  Vijayawada  in  the  disputed  premises.  

According to the High Court, the landlady/respondent was  

the best judge for her residential requirement and she can  

choose any place where she can settle down for various  

reasons.   In  view of  the  above,  the High Court  had set  

aside  the  concurrent  orders  of  the  Courts  below  and  

granted eviction of the appellant.   

12. We are unable to accept these findings of the High Court  

made in the impugned order.  It is an admitted position that  

the  landlady,  who is  permanently  residing  in  Hyderabad  

with her family consisting of a son and two daughters and  

she  has  got  two  houses  there,   only  because  she  has  

expressed her desire to stay at this old age of 70 years in  

the  tenanted  premises,  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  

requirement  of  the  landlady  has  been  proved   to  be  

genuine.   

13. As noted hereinearlier, the Rent Controller, Vijayawada and  

the Appellate Authority concurrently held on facts on proper  

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appreciation  of  evidence  on  record  that  the  

landlady/respondent had failed to prove that she required  

the  premises  in  question  for  her  bonafide  need.   This  

concurrent finding of fact was upset by the High Court in its  

revisional jurisdiction.  In our view, the High Court was not  

justified in interfering with such concurrent finding of fact in  

the  exercise  of  its  revisional  jurisdiction  and  come  to  a  

different  finding on the question of  bonafide need of  the  

landlady/respondent.   In  Smt. Rajbir  Kaur and Another  

Vs. M/s S. Chokesiri and Co. 1989 (1) SCC 19, this Court  

considered this aspect of the matter and at Page 43, has  

dealt with the aforesaid question elaborately –

“When the findings of fact recorded by the Courts- below are supportable on the evidence on record,   the revisional  Court  must,  indeed,  be reluctant  to   embark upon an independent re-assessment of the  evidence and to supplant a conclusion of its own,  so long as the evidence on record admitted of and  supported  the  one  reached  by  the  Courts-below.  With respect to the High Court, we are afraid, the   exercise  made  by  it  in  its  revisional  jurisdiction  incurs  the  criticism  that  the  concurrent-finding  of  fact  of  the  Courts-below  could  not  be  dealt  and  supplanted by a different  finding arrived at  on an  independent  re-assessment  of  evidence  as  was  done in this case”.

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14.  The  Rent  Controller  and  the  Appellate  Authority  had  

considered  the  entire  materials  on  record  and  the  

arguments adduced by the parties and came to a finding  

that  the  requirement  of  the  landlady/respondent  was not  

genuine and there was no need to leave her permanent  

house at Hyderabad, where she has been living, to come  

over to Vijayawada to stay alone at the age of 70 years  

without there being anyone to look after her.  This finding of  

fact  arrived  at  by  the  Rent  Controller  and  the  Appellate  

Authority, in our view, cannot be said to be perverse and  

arbitrary.   

15. That being the position, we are of the view that it was not  

open  to  the  High  Court,  in  the  exercise  of  its  revisonal  

jurisdiction, to interfere with the concurrent findings of fact  

of the Rent Controller as well as of the Appellate Authority.  

16. For the reasons aforesaid, the impugned order is set aside  

and that of Rent Controller, Vijayawada and the Appellate  

Authority are restored.   

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17. The application for eviction filed by the respondent stands  

rejected.   The appeal  is thus allowed.  There will  be no  

order as to costs.          

                  …………………………J.  [ TARUN CHATTERJEE ]  

NEW DELHI                         …………………………J. September 15, 2009                               [ R. M. LODHA ]

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