V.R. Krishna Iyer JUDGMENT
1. Once the facts are stated fairly, one is left to wonder what substantial issue of law deserving of adjudication by the Supreme Court survives at all in these appeals. We may straightway proceed to state, with brevity, the case of the appellant presented for our scrutiny and make short shrift of it as it merits little more.
2. The appellant, a landlord of a large building, had leased out in separate portions his building to several tenants. One of such tenants is the respondent. The former resolved to start a business in automobile spares and claimed eviction of the respondent by Rent Control proceedings, under Section 10(3)(iii)(a) and (b) of the Andhra Pradesh Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1960. The petition was resisted and the Rent Controller dismissed the petition. The appeal by the landlord failed but, in revision, the High Court chose to remand the case to the appellate authority. The litigation lengthened further because the latter, after hearing parties, remitted the whole case to the trial Court for fresh disposal in accordance with some directions and, after allowing parties to lead evidence. Instead of finishing the case at the trial court level, the landlord repeated a revision to the High Court on the perhaps technically correct stand that a wholesale remittal, as against calling for a finding on a specific point, was illegal, While hearing protracted arguments it came to the ken of the court that certain material events of fatal import to the maintainability of the eviction proceedings had come to pass and so it decided to mould the relief in the light of these admitted happenings. The learned judge observed :
If the fact of the landlord haying come into possession during the pendency of the proceedings of Shop No. 2 is to be taken into account, as indeed it must be, then clearly the petition is no longer maintainable under Section 10(3)(iii) of the Act, as the requisite condition for the invoking of that provision has ceased to exist viz., that the landlord was not occupying a non-residential building in the town. 'Building', of course means a portion of a building. As the prerequisite for the entitlement of the petitioner to institute and continue a petition has ceased to exist, it must follow that ABA No. 5/1967 is no longer maintainable and must be dismissed.
3. The inevitable sequel was the dismissal, not only of the civil revision, but also of the eviction petition. Thus, after a marathon forensic battle lasting over six years, the landlord lost even the flickering hope of success before the trial Court as a result of supererogatory revision to the High Court. It is against this adverse decision he has, by special leave, come to this Court.
4. Two submissions were advanced by Sri K. S. Raniamurthy to salvage his client's case. He argued that it was illegal for the High Court to have taken cognisance of subsequent events, disastrous as they proved to be. Secondly, he urged that once the High Court held-as it did- that the appellate tribunal acted illegally in remitting the whole case to the Rent Controller, it could not go further to dismiss his whole eviction proceedings, a misfortune heavier than would have been, had he not moved the High Court at all.