The question is whether the heirs of a deceased tenant whose contractual tenancy in respect of commercial premises has been determined, are entitled to the same protection against eviction afforded by the Act to the tenant.
He came into possession as tenant on and from 1.9.1959. In April, 1970 the respondent landlord determined the tenancy by serving a notice to quit on the tenant Wasti Ram, since deceased. In September, 1970, the respondent landlord filed a petition under section 14 of the Act for the eviction of the tenant Wasti Ram from the said shop on the following grounds: (1) non-payment of rent; (2) bona fide requirement; (3) change of user from residential to commercial; (4) substantial damage to property; and (5) sub-letting.
During the pendency of the appeal, the tenant Wasti Ram died and on 5.9.1977 the present appellant Smt. Gian Devi Anand, the widow of deceased Wasti Ram, was substituted in place of Wasti Ram on the application of the landlord.
It appears from the judgment of Shah, J. that ‘the Bombay Act merely grants conditional protection to a statutory tenant and does not invest him with the right to enforce the benefit of any of the terms and conditions of the original tenancy.’
The tenant may be carrying on a business in which the member of his family residing with him may not have any interest at all and yet on the construction adopted by the High Court, such member of the family would become a tenant in respect of the business premises. The principle behind section 5(11)(c) seems to be that when a tenant is in occupation of premises, the tenancy is taken by him not only for his own benefit, but also for the benefit of the members of the family residing with him and, therefore, when the tenant dies, protection should be extended to the members of the family who were participants in the benefit of the tenancy and for whose needs inter alia the tenancy was originally taken by the tenant.
But in case of business premises, a member of the family of the tenant residing with him at the time of his death may not be in possession of the business premises; he may be in service or he may be earning on any other business.
Though provisions of all the Rent Control Acts are not uniform, the common feature of all the Rent Control Legislation is that a contractual tenant on the termination of the contractual tenancy is by virtue of the provisions of the Rent Acts not liable to be evicted as a matter of course under the ordinary law of the land and he is entitled to remain in possession even after determination of the contractual tenancy.
The provisions of the Act, therefore, make it abundantly clear that the Act does not make any distinction between a ‘so called statutory tenant’ and a contractual tenant and the Act proceeds to treat both alike and to preserve and protect the status and rights of a tenant after determination of the contractual tenancy in the same way as the status and rights of a contractual tenant are protected and preserved.
The Legislature could never have possibly intended that with the death of a tenant of the commercial premises, the business carried on by the tenant, however flourishing it may be and even if the same constituted the source of livelihood of the members of the family, must necessarily come to an end on the death of the tenant, only because the tenant died after the contractual tenancy had been terminated.
Commercial premises are let out not only to individuals but also to Companies, Corporations and other statutory bodies having a juristic personality.
It can hardly be conceived that the Legislature would intend to deny to one class of tenants, namely, individuals, the protection which will be enjoyed by the other class, namely, the Corporations and Companies and other bodies with juristic personality under the Act.
if the Rent Act in question defines a tenant in substance to mean a tenant who continues to remain in possession even after the termination of the contractual tenancy till a decree for eviction against him is passed’, the tenant even after the determination of the tenancy continues to have an estate or interest in the tenanted premises and the tenancy rights both in respect of residential premises and commercial premises are heritable. The heirs of the deceased tenant in the absence of any provision in the Rent Act to the contrary will step into the position of the deceased tenant.
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