R.A.JAHAGIRDAR, J. - (1.) One Shantilal Hemchand Porwal was the owner of the building bearing City Survey No. 368 and situated at Guruwar Peth, Pune. The petitioner in this petition is the tenant of a room on the ground floor of the said building. After determining the tenancy of the petitioner the said Shantilal Porwal filed a suit, being Civil Suit No. 2959 of 1972, against the petitioner for possession of the room, hereinafter referred to as "the suit premises", on the ground that the petitioner was guilty of a conduct which was a nuisance and/or annoyance to the adjoining occupiers, as mentioned in section 13(1)(c) of the Bombay Rents Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, hereinafter referred to as "the Bombay Rent Act." Though originally in the suit a ground was also urged for possession on the ground that the petitioner was in arrears of rent, that ground was rightly given up because after the notice issued under section 12(2) of the Bombay Rent Act the petitioner had sent the amount by money order which was refused by the said Shantilal. During the pendency of the suit Shantilal died and his heirs and legal representatives were brought on record and they are respondents Nos. 1 to 5 in this petition. They will hereinafter be referred to as "the respondents". Respondent No. 6 is a formal party, he being the Judge of the appellate Court below.
(2.) What is apparently a finding of fact is challenged in this petition. It is, therefore, necessary for me to narrate briefly what exactly was alleged and what exactly has been held proved by the courts below. The case for annoyance and nuisance was based upon the following three allegations :--- i) That the petitioner was keeping along with the other tenants bicycles in the passage, thus causing obstruction to the other tenants; ii) That the petitioner and/or the other tenants have kept drums also causing obstruction to the other tenants; and iii) That the petitioner and the other tenants have been throwing rubbish in a tank (known in Marathi as "Houd").
(3.) In support of their case the respondents examined Kiran, who is respondent No. 2 before me, and one tenant who was staying on the first floor of the building. He is Bhikoba Dhamanskar. Both the Courts below have come to the conclusion that the tenants keep bicycles in the passage, that they also take water from the drums which are kept near the sink and that they also throw rubbish in the tank. The question to which the two Courts below had to address themselves was whether by these acts the petitioner has caused nuisance or annoyance in the legal sense. What constitutes nuisance has not been defined either in the Bombay Rent Act or in any other Act. In Walter v. Salfe, Sir Lancelot Knight Bruce, V.C., has attempted a definition which may be found workable in the following terms : "...both on principle and authority the important point next for decision may properly be thus put : Ought this inconvenience to be considered in fact more than fanciful, more than one of delicacy or fastidiousness as an inconvenience materially interfering with the ordinary comfort physically of human existence, not merely according to elegant or dainty modes and habits of living but according to plain and sober and simple notions among the English people ?" (Quoted by Andhyarujina in his Law of Rent Control at page 657) As has also been pointed out by Justice Beaman in (Bai Bhicaiji v. Perojshaw Jivanji Kerawalla), XVII Bom.L.R. 1040, a legal nuisance is rather an evasive, shifting and intangible thing hard to be pinned down by a verbal definition. It must be always be conditioned by time, place and circumstances. It has been further pointed out by Justice Beaman that in estimating a nuisance complained of, the Court must have regard to the station in life of the plaintiff, and to the locality and the nature of the nuisance complained of. In the absence of statutory provisions, no general considerations of mere policy, or abstract public rights, can be allowed to prevail against what the law recognises and always has recognised as the legal rights of the individual. Again, there are many degrees of nuisances, those which (1) endanger life; (2) endanger health; and (3) diminish the comforts of the plaintiff.;