ASSOCIATED HOTELS OF INDIA LIMITED Vs. R N KAPOOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) , J. : I have had the advantage and privilege of reading the judgments prepared by my learned brethren, Sarkar J. and Subba Rao J. I agree with my learned brother Subba Rao J., that the deed of 1-5-1949, is a lease and not a licence. I have nothing useful to add to what he has said on this part of the case of the appellant.

(2.) ON the question of the true scope and effect of S. 2(b) of the Delhi and Ajmer-Merwara Rent Control Act, (19 of 1947) hereinafter called the Rent Control Act, I have reached the same conclusion as has been reached by my learned brother Sarkar, J., namely, that the rooms or spaces let out by the appellant to the respondent in the Imperial Hotel, New Delhi, were rooms in a hotel within the meaning of S. 2(b) of the Rent Control Act; therefore, that Act did not apply and the respondent was not entitled to ask for the determination of fair rent under its provisions. The reasons for which I have reached that conclusion are somewhat different from those of my learned brother, Sarkar, J., and it is, therefore, necessary that I should state the reasons in my own words.

(3.) PASSING now from definitions which are apt not to be uniform, the question is whether the partitioned spaces in the two cloak rooms let out to the respondent were rooms in that hotel. In a physical sense they were undoubtedly rooms in that hotel. I am prepared, however, to say that a strictly literal construction may not be justified and the word 'room' in the composite expression 'room in a hotel' must take colour from the context or the collocation of words in which it has been used; in other words, its meaning should be determined noscitur a sociis. The reason why I think so may be explained by an illustration. Suppose there is a big room inside a hotel; in a physical sense it is a room in a hotel, but let us suppose that it is let out, to take an extreme example, as a timber godown. Will it still be a room in a hotel, though in a physical sense it is a room of the building which is used as a hotel? I think it would be doing violence to the context if the expression 'room in a hotel' is interpreted in a strictly literal sense. On the view which I take a room in a hotel must fulfil two conditions : (1) it must be part of a hotel in the physical sense and (2) its user must be connected with the general purpose of the hotel of which it is a part. In the case under our consideration the spaces were let out for carrying on the business of a hair dresser. Such a business I consider to be one of the amenities which a modern hotel provides. The circumstance that people not resident in the hotel might also be served by the hair dresser does not alter the position; it is still an amenity for the residents in the hotel to have a hair dressing saloon within the hotel itself. A modern hotel provides many facilities to its residents; some hotels have billiard rooms let out to a private person where residents of the hotel as also non-residents can play billiards on payment of a small fee; other hotels provide post-office and banking facilities by letting out rooms in the hotel for that purpose. All these amenities are connected with the hotel business and a barber's shop within the hotel premises is no exception.