Manepalli Sitaramanjaneyalu vs Pachigolla Krishnayya and Another

Rajamannar, C.J.—This application arises out of a proceeding under the Rent Control Act. The tenant is the petitioner. The respondent

landlord filed a petition for eviction on the ground of default in payment of rent for the month from 10th August 1949 to 9th September 1949 (H.

R. C. 395 of 1949). This petition was not disposed of till 6-2-1950 when it was dismissed. Meanwhile on 11-12-1949 the respondent filed

another petition for eviction on the ground of default in payment of rent for the month from 10th September 1949 to 9th October 1949. This

petition was allowed by the Rent Controller and the decision of the Rent Controller was affirmed by the appellate tribunal and the tenant seeks to

have the order of eviction quashed.

Mr. Venugopalachari for the petitioner argued that till the disposal of the first petition for eviction, a second petition for eviction could not be

filed, because if the first petition was eventually rejected, then, under the provisions of Section 7(6) of the Act, the tenancy shall be deemed to

continue. He relied on an unreported judgment of this Court in ''C. M. P. No. 4996 of 1949'', in which a Division Bench to which one of us was a

party construed Section 7(6) of the Act. In that case an application for eviction was rejected. A subsequent application for eviction was made on

the allegation that default had occurred and the tenancy became terminable before the date of the prior application for eviction. It was held that the

second petition by the landlord was not maintainable having regard to the provisions of Sub-section (6) of Section 7. The ''ratio decidendi'' of that

decision was,

Once the application is rejected, the tenancy is deemed to continue. The landlord cannot allege in a subsequent application that the tenancy has

come to an end before the date of the rejection. That would be in the teeth of the express provisions of the enactment.

We think it follows from this construction of that provision that in support of a second application for eviction, the landlord can only rely upon

default or other grounds committed or available after the date of the rejection of the first application. In this case, the second petition was filed

before the prior application had even been dismissed. The prior application was actually dismissed on 6-2-1950 '' and therefore the tenancy must

be deemed to have continued at least up to that date. In effect, the landlord in the second petition alleges that from the 24th October 1949, the

tenancy must be deemed to have come to an end. This he cannot be permitted to say.

We asked the learned counsel who appeared for the landlord-respondent to give us some intelligible meaning of Section 7(6) of the Act which

would be of assistance to him, but he was unable to give any such explanation. Evidently the reason why such a provision was enacted was

because once a landlord had exhibited an unequivocal intention to terminate the tenancy and the matter was ''sub judice'' he should not be entitled

to avail himself of the benefit of any de-fault or other act of the tenant to serve as a foundation of a second application for eviction in case he failed

to obtain the requisite relief in the first application.

The order of the appellate tribunal con firming the decision of the Rent Controller must be, and is hereby, quashed and the application for

eviction dismissed. There will be no order as to costs.