Judgment:
ORDER
Thangamani, J.
1. The revision petitioner is the tenant/respondent in R.C.O.P. No. 12 of 1991 on the file of Rent Controller cum District Munsif, Dindigul. The landlord filed that application under Sections 10(3)(a)(i) and 14(1)(b) of the Tamil Nadu Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act 18 of 1960. The landlord alleged that recently he has retired from Government service. He has no other house except the petition house in Dindigul. He is now put up in a rented building in Namakkal. He requires the building for his residence at Dindigul. Even while he was in service he had written letters to the tenant seeking the house for his accommodation after retirement. The landlord also claimed that the building was constructed 100 years ago and since it is in dilapidated condition, he wants the same for demolition and reconstruction. The trial court allowed his application only on the first ground. The appeal preferred by the tenant in R.C.A. No. 22 of 1992 was also dismissed by the appellate authority. Now the tenant has come forward with this civil revision petition against the said orders.
2. Both the courts below have found that the landlord has no other building in Dindigul. There is no dispute that at the time of application he was residing in Namakkal. Learned Counsel for the revision petition submitted that the courts below have gone wrong in holding that the landlord is put up in a rented building in Namakkal. Ex. P-16 is the notice given by the landlord to the tenant on 13.2.1989 through his counsel stating about his requirement of the house. In this he has specified that he is residing only in a rented building in Namakkal. This claim has not been repudiated by the revision petitioner in his reply Ex. P-17 dated 25.2.1989. Besides, the tenant has stated in his evidence that only from the landlord he came to know that the letter was having his own house in Namakkal. Excepting this verbal version of the tenant, there is no other material to hold that the landlord is having a house in Namakkal. In any event, the landlord is the native of Dindigul. Only because he was in service, he was away from the town all along. Now it is open to him to settle in Dindigul and seek vacation of his house for the purpose of his residence. It is not for the tenant to oppose the same on the ground that the landlord has his own house in Namakakal and he can as well settle there. Further, we find from Ex. P-10 that even in 1980 the landlord has informed the tenant that he was requiring the building for his own use. The trial court also observes that Exs. P-1 to P-15 the correspodnence between the landlord and tenant from 1968 to 1989 indicate that continuously the landlord has been pressing the tenant to vacate the house for his own occupation after his retirement. While so, it is evident that the courts below have rightly found in favour of the landlord.
3. Learned Counsel for the revision petitioner cited the decision in Thanneermalai Chettiar v. S.J. Dhnraj : (1986)1MLJ115 , in support of his contention that the burden is on the landlord to show that he does not own any house in Namakkal. In the case cited the landlord sought eviction of the tenant of his house at Villupuram on the ground that he required the premises for his own occupation. The landlord was permanently residing in Devakottai. He wanted to leave Devakottai and settle down at Villupuram. That application was resisted by the tenant stating that all his vested interest and properties of the landlord are only at Devakottai The father of the landlord was a businessman and the entire family was doing business in money lending at Devakottai. Besides, they have got a vast estate there. His requirement of the house on the ground that he wanted to settle down at Villupuram was most unjustifiable and unnatural. In these circumstances, Natarajan, J., has held that the landlord failed to establish that there was a genuine pressing need of the house for his own use and occupation. Evidently, the facts therein are not akin to those in the present case. It is not the case of the revision petitioner herein that the landlord has got any avocation in Namakkal. That at one point of time in his service the landlord happened to be in Namakkal cannot be a ground for holding that he does not require his own house at Dindigul which is his native place for his settling there after his retirement. So, it cannot be said that the order of the appellate authority requires interference on the ground of any error in the legality or propriety of its decision.
4. In the result, the civil revision petition is dismissed even at the admission stage itself. Time for eviction three months on condition that the petitioner files an affidavit of undertaking in the court below within two weeks from this day.