PASUPULETI VENKATESWARLU Vs. MOTOR AND GENERAL TRADERS

JUDGEMENT

(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 straight way 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 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:

(3.) Two submissions were advanced by Sri K. S. Ramamurthy to salvage his client's case (supra). 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.