Shyambihari lal vs Jagannath Prasad

A.H. Khan, J.—The plaintiff filed a suit for eviction of his tenant on the ground that the premises are needed for his use and also for the use of his nephew. The trial Court decreed the suit but on appeal the learned Additional District Judge, Gwalior, dismissed the suit on the ground that a nephew was not a dependent of the plaintiff, and, as such the tenant could not be evicted from the premises. Aggrieved by this the plaintiff has filed this second appeal. The question for determination is whether a nephew can be regarded to be a person of ones family.

Clause (g) of Section 4 of the Madhya Pradesh Accommodation Control Act runs thus:-

In the case of residential accommodation, that the landlord genuinely requires the accommodation for his own residence or that of any person of his family bona-fide residing or to reside with him and there is no other accommodation of his own in the city or town concerned for, such residence.

This clause does not speak of a dependent and where the law does not use a word, it is not proper for a Court to disregard the word used in the statute and introduce a word of its own and then begin to explain it. The words used in this clause are "any person of his family". The correct position of law is that if accommodation is required by a landlord for "any person of his family", he can get the tenant evicted. It does not require much effort of imagination to hold that a nephew is a person of one''s family.

Language similar to that used in clause (g), has been liberally interpreted in England (See 1956 I All.