Holding

The High Court erred in quashing the eviction decree; no legal requirement to state the plinth area exists, and the High Court exceeded its supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227.

Summary

The landlady, Ms. Rena Drego, sought eviction of her tenant under Section 13(1)(g) of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, claiming a bona‑fide and reasonable need for additional accommodation for her large family. The trial court dismissed her suit, but the appellate Small Causes Court granted an eviction decree, which the Bombay High Court later quashed on the grounds of a discrepancy in the landlady's evidence about her eldest son’s flat and her failure to state the plinth area of her own flat. The Supreme Court held that the High Court exceeded its supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 by re‑examining factual findings and relying on materials not before the lower tribunal. It further ruled that no statutory requirement exists to specify the plinth area when invoking Section 13(1)(g). Consequently, the Court restored the eviction decree, allowing the tenant three months to vacate. The decision reaffirmed that the reasonableness of a landlord’s requirement is a factual determination and that the High Court cannot disturb factual conclusions unless they are perverse or unreasonable.

Issues considered

The High Court's authority under Article 227 to quash an eviction decree based on alleged discrepancies in the landlady's evidence.
Whether a landlord must specify the plinth area of the premises occupied when invoking Section 13(1)(g) of the Bombay Rents Act.
Whether the landlady's claim of needing additional accommodation satisfies the "reasonable and bona‑fide" requirement of Section 13(1)(g).
The proper scope of supervisory jurisdiction of High Courts in rent‑control matters.

Legislation cited

Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947s. 13(1)(g), s. 13(2)
Constitution of Indias. Article 227

Subjects

rent controlevictionSection 13(1)(g)reasonable requirementbona fideArticle 227supervisory jurisdictionplinth arealandlord's needhardship

Judgment

MRS. RENA DREGO A
v.
LALCHAND SONI, ETC.

MARCH 5, 1998

[M.M. PUNCHHI, en., S. SAGHIR AHMAD AND B
K.T. THOMAS, JJ.]

Rent Control & Eviction :

Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947- C
Sec,. 13(1)(g)-Eviction of Tenant-Bona.fide requirement by landlady for.
personal use-Suit for Eviction-Rejected by Trial Court-On appeal decree
for eviction granted-Quashed by High Court on the grounds of discrepancy
in the evidence of appellant and failure to specify the plinth area of the
apartment she was living in-On appeal held, no legal requirement t0 specify D
the plinth area-Undue importance given to the discrepancy in the evidence
of landlady-High Court not justified in quashing the decree of Eviction-,-
Decree a/Eviction restored.

Constitution .of India, 1950-Article 227-Supervisory Jurisdiction ·of
High Court-Exercise of-Held, High Court to confine to the scrutiny of the E
records and proceedings of the lower tribunal--Not to disturb the findings
offacts by relying on fresh materials.

Words & Phrases

"Reasonable "-Meaning of in the Context of sec. 13 (l)(g) of Bombay . F
Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947.

The appellant landlady filed an Eviction Suit under Sec. lJ(l)(g) of the
Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947, on the
ground that she needed the tenanted premises for her own occupation as she G
was finding it difficult to accommodate her large family in the place she was
living in. The Trial Court rejected her suit. On appeal, the appellate Court
granted a decree for Eviction. The respondent tenant filled a writ petition in
the High Court, which quashed the Eviction Order on the grounds that there
was discrepancy in the evidence of the appellant regarding the flat of her
eldest son and that she failed to specify the plinth area of the apartment when H
197
198 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1998] 2 S.C.R.

A wa!: living in. Hence the present appeal.
Allowing the appeal, this Court

HELD : 1.1. The High Court erred in quashing the decree of Eviction
passed by a competent court on satisfaction of the ground under Sec. 13(1)(g)
B of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947.
(205-B]

l
1.2. The High Court has traversed far beyond the limit of its
supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution when the
Single Judge reversed the decree of eviction which was based on findings
C of facts arrived at by the fact-finding authority upon the evidence on record.
It would have been well for the High Court to remind itself that it was not
exercising certiorari jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution but
supervisory .iurisdiction under Article 227 which obliges the High Court to
confine to the scrutiny of the records and proceedings of the lower tribunal.
D By relying on fresh materials which were not before the tribunal, the High
Court should not have disturbed findings of facts in exercise of such
supervisory jurisdiction. It is new well settled that power 11nder Article 227
is one of judicial superintendence which cannot be used to upset conclusions
of facts, however erroneous those may be, unless such conclusions are so
perverse or so unreasonable that no Court could ever have reached them.
E [200-F-G]

Waryam Singh & Am: v. Amaranth & Anr, AIR (1954) SC 215;
Babhutmal Raichand Oswal. v. Laxmibai R, Tarte & Am:, AIR (1975) SC
1297; Mis India Pipe Fitting Co. v. FakruddingMA. Baker & Am:, (1978)
SC 45 and Sukbhir Narain v. Deputy Director of Consolidation, AIR (1987)
F SC 1645, referred to.

2. Whether the requirement is reasonable or not can only be .iudged
from the facts since no straight-jacket formula can be evolved for it. It is

I
difl1cult to give an exact definition of the word "reasonable". However, when
G the landlady says that the needs more accommodation for her family, there
is no scope for doubting the reasonableness of her requirement. There is no
dispute in the fact that the appellant is now living in a small apartment with
her husband and grown up sons. The respondent tenant is in occupation of
yet another flat situated in the same locality. If the respondent tenant is
evicted from his tenanted premises, the hardship if any would not be more
H then the hardship which the appellant landlady is facing now due to shortage
RENA DREGO v. LALCHAND SONI [THOMAS, J.] 199

ofspace. (202-G; 203-F-G) A
Krishchand Moorjimal v. Bai Kalavati, AIR (1973) Bombay 46;
Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Jagan Nath Ashok Kumar, (1987) 4 SCC
497 and Gujarat Water Supply & Sewerage Board v. Unique Erectors
(Gujarat) P. Ltd,(1989] 1 SCC 532, referred to.
B
In re Nice & Schreiber, 123 F. 987, referred to.

3~ The
High Court has given undue prominence to a seeming
discrepancy in the evidence of landlady regarding the flat of her eldest son.
(203-H; 204-A) C
4. There is no legal requirement that the person who claims eviction
on the ground under Sec. 13(l)(g) of the Act shall specify the area in his
possession. (204-F)

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal Nos. 1410-11 of
1998. D
From the Judgment and Order dated 9.4.97 of the Bombay High Court
in W. P. No. 3148/95 and 6388of1996.

V.N. Ganpule and A.S. Bhasme for the Appellant.
E
'Ms. Indra Jaising, T.C.·Shanna, Bharat N. Vaishnava, Ajay Sharma and
Rupesh Kumar for the Respondents.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by

THOMAS, J. Leave granted. F

A landlady had rented out her flat situate at Bandra (West) in Bombay
(now Mumbai) to a tenant in 1969 for a rent of Rs. 200 per month. As years
passed by, she found it difficult to accommodate her large family in the small
residential apartment where she is presently living. So, she moved the Court G
in 1977 for a decree of eviction of her tenant from her flat at Sandra. Of course,
she cast the net very wide covering a variety of grounds to have a .decree
~. for eviction, but what ultimately survived among them was the ground
envisaged in Section 13 (1 )(g) of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging
House Rates Control Act, 1947 (for short 'the Act'), i.e., bona fide and
reasonable requirement of the tenanted premises for her own occupation. H
200 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1998] 2 S.C.R.

A though, she was non suited by the trial court (which is the Small Causes
Court, Bombay), she went in appeal to the appellate bench of the Court of
Small causes, where she got a decree for eviction on the ground mentioned
above. But the said decree did not enure to her benefit as the same was later
upset by the High court of Bombay when the tenant filed a writ petition under
B Article 227 of the Constitution for quashment of the same. This appeal, by
special leave, has been filed by the landlady impugning the aforesaid judgment
of the Bombay High Court.

It is to be pointed out, right now itself, that the need of the landlady
for additional accommodation in view of her large family was recognised by
C the trial court. Still she was non-suited by the trial court on the premise that
her pleadings on that score were scanty. Appeal Court after concurring with
the finding which was favourable to the landlady did not take the inadequacy
in the pleadings as capable of fatally affecting her cause. Hence the appeal
court found no hurdle in granting the decree of eviction. But a learned single
judge of the High court who quashed the said decree held the landlady guilty
D of two wrongs. First is that she did not speak the truth in her evidence that
her eldest son (whose name is Giles Drego) has his own flat where he is living
with his family (The landlady has admitted in her reply affidavit filed in the
High Court, during the pendency of the Writ petition, that her son Giles Drego
and his wife are joint owners of a flat situate at Vasai in Thane district).
E Second is that, she failed to specify the plinth area of the apa1tment in which
she is presently living with her family.

According -to us, the High Court has traversed far beyond the limit of
its supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution when the
learned Single Judge reversed the decree of eviction ·which was based on
p findings of facts arrived at by the fact-finding authority upon the evidence
on record. It would have been well for the High court to remind itself that it
was not exercising certiorari jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution
but a supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 which obliges the High Court
to confine to the scrutiny of records and proceedings of the lower tribunal.
By relying on fresh materials which were not before the tribunal, the High
G Court should not have disturbed findings of facts in exercise of such
supervisory jurisdiction. it is now well nigh settled that power under Article
227 is one of judicial superintendence which cannot be used to upset
conclusions of facts, however erroneous those may be, unless such
conclusions are so perverse or so unreasonable that no court could ever have
H reached them. Way back in 1954, a Constitution Bench of this Court, in
RENA DREGO v. LALCHAND SONI [THOMAS, J] 201
Waryam Singh & m11'. v. Amarnath & anr., AIR (1954) SC 215 has pointed A
out that the power of superintendence conferred by Article 227 should be
~ exercised '"most sparingly and only in appropriate cases in order to keep the
subordinate courts within the bounds of their authority and not for correcting
mere errors."
(emphasis supplied) B
The said decision was made in an appeal which considered an order
passed by a Rent Control Court. Quoting the aforesaid dictum a three Judge
Bench of this Court has in Babhutmal Raichand Oswal v. Laxmibai R. Tarte
& Anr., AIR (1975) SC 1297 observed thus:

"The power of superintendence of High Court under Article 227 being C
extraordinary is to be exercised most sparingly and only in appropriate
cases. The power, as in the case of certiorari jurisdiction, cannot be
invoked to correct an error of fact which only a superior court can do
in exercise of its statutory power as a court of appeal. The High Court
cannot, in guise of exercising its jurisdiction under Art. 227, convert
itself into a court of appeal when the legislature has not conferred a D
right of appeal and made the decision of the subordinate court or
tribunal final on facts. The High Court cannot, while exercising
jurisdiction under Art. 227, interfere with findings of fact recorded by
the subordinate court or tribunal. It's function is limited to seeing that
the subordinate court or tribunal functions within the limits of its E
authority. It cannot correct mere errors of fact by examining the
evidence and appreciating it."

The aforesaid position has been reiterated by the Court on subsequent
occasions also (vide Mis. India Pipe Fitting Co. v. Fakruddin MA. Baker
& anr, AIR (1978) SC 45 and Sukhbir Narain v. Deputy Director of F
Consolidation, AIR (1987) SC 1645).

For appreciating the arguments of both sides, we have to take a look
at the provision under which the landlady claimed eviction. The material
portion of Section 13(1)(g) of the Act is the following:

"13. When landlord may recover possession:- G
(!) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act (but subject to the
provisions of section 15 and 15A, a landlord shall be entitled to
recover possession of any premises if the Court is satisfied.-

xxx xxx xxx H
202 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1998] 2 S.C.R.

A (g) that the premises are reasonably and bona fide required by the
landlord for occupation by himself or by any person for whose benefit
the premises are held or where the landlord is a trustee of a public
charitable trust that the premises are required for occupation for the
purposes of the trust; or

B xxx xxx xxx

Sections 15 and 15 A have no bearing on the facts of this case and
hence it is not necessary to extract them here. However, sub-section 2 of
Section 13 also has to be quoted which reads thus:

c (2) No decree for eviction shall be passed on the ground spe9ified in
clause (g) of sub-section (l) if the Court is satisfied that, having
regard to all the circumstances of the case including the question
whether other reasonable accommodation is available for the landlord
or the tenant, greater hardship would be caused by passing the decree
than by refusing to pass it.
D
Where the Court is satisfied that no hardship would be caused
either to the tenant or to the landlord by passing the decree in respect
of a part of the premises, the Court shall pass the decree in respect
of such part only".
E The important postulates for constituting the aforesaid ground are: (1)
the requirement of the landlord for his occupation of the tenanted premises
should be reasonable; (2) it should also be bona fide; (3) the hardship of the
tenant in case of eviction should not be more than the hardship of the
landlord if he fails to get the eviction order. Whether the requirement is
F reasonable or not can only be judged from the facts since no strait-jacket
formula can be evolved for it.

It is difficult to give an exact definition of the word 'reasonable'. It is
often said that "an attempt to give a specific meaning to the word 'reasonable'
is trying to count what is not number and measure what is not space." The
G author of 'Words and Phrases' [Permanent Edition] has quoted from In re
Nice & Schreiber, 123 F. 987 ,988 to give a plausible meaning for the said word.
He says "the expression 'reasonable, is a relative term, and the facts of the
particular controversy must be considered before the question as to what
constitutes reasonable can be determined." it is not meant to be expedient or
H convenient but certainly something more than that. While interpreting the
RENA DREGO v. LALCHAND SONI [THOMAS, J.] 203
word 'reasonable' in Section 13 of the Act, the Bombay High Court has A
suggested in Krishchand Moorjimal v. Bai Kalavati, AIR (1973) Bombay 46,
"that the word 'reasonable' cannot mean convenient or luxurious, though it
may not necessarily exclude the idea of convenience and comfort." However,
the expression reasonable can be taken as providing an angle which is
confonnable or agreeable to reasons, having regard to the facts of the particular B
controversy.

In Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Jagan Nath Ashok Kumar, [1987]
4 SCC 497, this Court has stated that "the word 'reasonable' has in law prima
facie meaning of reasonable in regard to those circumstances of which the
actor,~called upon to act reasonably, knows or ought to know." This has been C
reiterated by Sabyasachi Mukherjee J. (as his Lordship then was) in Gujarat
Water Supply & Sewerage Board v. Unique Erectors Gujarat (P.) ltd., [1989]
1sec532.

For the present purpose, the broad features of this case, which are
undisputed, can be looked at. They are: (I) Appellant is now living in a small D
apartment which has only one bedroom, one living room, a kitchen and a
toilet; (2) appellant is living with her husband and her grown up sons (Cedric
Drego, his wife and a child, and the youngest son Nereus Drego); (3) the
eldest son Giles Drego is staying in another flat with his wife and children;
(4) the tenant is in occupation of yet another flat situate in the same locality E
which, on his own admission, is a "kitchen plus three -room flat."

In the light of the above admitted factual position when the landlady
says that she needs more accommodation for her family, there is no scope for
doubting the reasonableness of the requirement. Further the above
circumstances would raise a presumption that the requirement is bona fide F
also. The tenant has failed to show that the demand for eviction was made
with any oblique motive and in the absence of any such evidence the
presumption of bona tides stands unrebutted.

There cannot be any possible contention that the hardships, if any,
which may enure to the tenant in the event of eviction from this tenanted G
premises, would be more than the hardship which appellant is now facing due
to shortage of the space in her possession, particularly in view of the large
number of members of the family living there.

It is unfortunate that the High Court has given undue prominence to H
204 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1998] 2 S.C.R.

A a seeming discrepancy in the evidence of the landlady regarding the flat of
her eldest son Giles Drego. In her evidence she declined to agree to the
.,...
suggestion of the cross-examiner that Giles Drego owns another flat, but in
her affidavit, filed in the High Court, she admitted that the said son owns a
flat jointly with bis wife. It is not clear from the averments in the affidavit
B whether Giles Drego came into possession of the said flat during the interval
between the evidence taking stage and launching of the writ petition. Even
otherwise there is nothing to indicate in the judgment of the appellate authority
that it was persuaded by the aforesaid answer of the landlady in cross-
examination. That authority was concerned about the plight of the third son
Cedric Drego who was working in Taj Hotel. This can be discerned from the
C following reasons advanced by the appellate authority:

"It is absolutely and clearly established that as of now, the family of
the landlady, including her son in Taj Hotel and daughter-in-law have
no place for residence. That they would become entitled to it in future
or even further that they could have got it and have not attempted
D to get it would not by itself vitiate the case of the requirement set up
by the landlady. Here, quite plainly speaking the case appears to be
that the landlady is put up in a flat belonging to her husband and that
flat falls short of the requirement and therefore, there is a need for
additional accommodation. We do not find any thing unreasonable or
E male fide in the case tried to be set up by the landlady."

The other ground highlighted by the learned single judge for upsetting
the decree of eviction is that the landlady did not specify the plinth area of
the space which is presently in her occupation. There is no legal requirement
that the person who claims eviction on the ground under Section 13( I) (g)
F of the Act shall specify the area in his possession. However, if the High Court
thought it necessary to know the exact plinth area in the possession of the
appellant, she could have been asked to spell it out. It was not done, and
instead learned Single Judge has blamed her in the following terms:

G "Even at this stage, no attempt has been made by filing an affidavit
to show what is the area of the flat presently occupied by the landlady."

As a matter of fact, the landlady has mentioned it, which the High Court
has overlooked. Jn the affidavit sworn to by the landlady in the writ petition
H filed in the High Court the following averment has been made:
RENA DREGO v. LALCHAND SONI [THOMAS·, J.) 205
"I say that I am holding and occupying a flat admeasuring 560 sq. ft. A
which consists of one bed room, one living room, one kitchen and a
bathroom along with W.C."

We find no justification for the High Court for quashing the decree of
eviction. passed by a competent court on satisfaction of the ground under
Section 13(1)(g) of the Act. We, therefore, allow these appeals and set aside B
the impugned judgment of the High Court. The decree of eviction will stand
restored subject to a rider that respondent-tenant can have three months' time
from today for surrendering the premises in question, provided he gives the
undertaking on usual terms within four weeks in the Registry of this Court.

S.V .K.l. Appeals allowed.

-I'