Krishna Pillai Gopala Pillai vs Madhavan Pillai Subbiah Pillai

M. Madhavan Nair, J.—This appeal is by a landlord who obtained a decree for eviction of a tenant and his assignee from the suit property, which is a plot of 64 cents with buildings, very near the Secretariat Buildings in the Trivandrum city. The 2nd defendant, assignee of the lessee, objected to execution as being barred by Sec. 106 of the Land Reforms Act, 1964 to 1969. The executing court accepted it and disallowed execution for recovery of the property. Hence this appeal. The concerned lease is evidenced by Ex.D1. It shows that a building then on the property was let to the 1st defendant for a period of three months on a rental of Rs. 100/- per mensem along with the compound on a rental of Rs. 10/- per mensem. It further stipulates that the lessee should construct a pucka two-storeyed building on the premises with money supplied by the landlord, that such construction should be completed within the three months, and that thereafter the lessee might continue on the premises paying a rental of Rs. 3000/- per annum for the buildings, and Rs. 120/- per annum for the compound. The lease deed contains specific provisions prohibiting the tenant from alienating or sub-letting his leasehold interest and from putting up any structure on the premises besides the buildings stipulated for construction. The rental for the compound is mentioned in Ex. D1 as Tharapattom

which indicates that it was not rent for any agricultural lease. The replication states and counsel for defendant concedes that the buildings on the suit property were let to the 1st defendant for purposes of running a hotel therein. It is then obvious that the compound let out on Tharapattom with an express stipulation not to build, thereon must have been given for purposes of the hotel, like conduct of open air dinner parties.

Section 106 of the Land Reforms Act reads: Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, or in any other law, or in any order or decree of court, where on any land leased for commercial or industrial purpose, the lessee has constructed buildings for such commercial or industrial purpose before the 20th May, 1967, he shall not be liable to be evicted from such land, but shall be liable to pay rent under the contract of tenancy, and such rent shall be liable to be varied every twelve years--

It is a condition of the Section that "on any land leased for commercial or industrial purpose, the lessee has constructed buildings for such commercial or industrial purpose". So, in order to attract the section, the land must have been let for a commercial or industrial purpose and the leassee must have constructed buildings thereon for that commercial or industrial purpose. The expression "constructed" in a provision of law normally means constructed lawfully. When the lease deed expressly prohibits construction of buildings and such covenants are expressly sustained as binding obligations in a current statute (Act XXIX of 1958), any construction made in violation thereof cannot be said to be lawful.

Counsel for the 2nd defendant-respondent drew our attention to the non-obstante clause in Section 106. As pointed out by Madhavan Nair J. in Padmanabhan Moosad v. Parvathi Manayamma (1967 KLT 555 at 559) the non obstante clause in a section has to be read in juxtaposition with the contents of that section and not generally. The expression "notwithstanding........any contract" in section 106 must therefore mean notwithstanding any contract which is not in consonance with the provision in Section 106 which is that, if certain conditions are satisfied, the tenant should not be evicted from his leasehold. In other words, the contracts which are affected by the non obstante clause in Section 106 are contracts that provide for the eviction of tenants even in circumstances which satisfy the conditions mentioned in the Section. That has nothing to do with the legality of construction of buildings by a tenant against an express covenant in his lease, which is a matter covered by Section 17 of the Act XXIX of 1958. It then follows that the conditions for immunity u/s 106 of the Land Reforms Act are not satisfied and therefore Section 106 is no bar to execution of the decree in this case.

The appeal succeeds. In reversal of the order of the court below, we dismiss the objections raised by the 2nd defendant-judgment-debtor, and allow execution to proceed as per the decree in the case.