NAGAIYA NAIDU Vs. EKAMBARA CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner seeks to revise the judgment in Ejectment Suit No. 158 of 1924, Madras Court of Small Causes.

(2.) The ground for revision is that the Judge failed to exercise the jurisdiction vested in him by the Madras City Tenants Protection Act 3 of 1922. It is not correct to say that this Act vests jurisdiction in any Court. The Act creates a certain class of privileged tenants and a defence open to a tenant of Madras City in a suit for ejectment may be that he belongs to this privileged class. A Court which has considered this defence on its merits, and has rejected it cannot be said to have failed to exercise jurisdiction.

(3.) The short point for decision by the lower Court was whether the tenant of two rooms with a vacant piece of land in front was a tenant as defined by Act 3 of 1922. Under Section 2(4), a tenant means a tenant of land, and under Section 2(2) land does not include buildings. To hold therefore that the tenancy must be exclusively of land, cannot be said to be so perverse or irregular as to attract the provisions of Section 115, Civil P.C.