The appellant filed the suit in 1966 for eviction of M s H.D. Commercial Corporation hereinafter referred to as the Corporation , who was its monthly tenant in respect of one room in its building in Bombay on the grounds of default in payment of rent and unlawful sub letting of a partitioned portion of the room, marked as BCDE in the plan which was exhibited during trial as Ext.
The appellate companyrt companycurred with all the findings of the trial companyrt and dismissed the appeal.
Accordingly, it decreed the suit for unlawful subletting.
Except the respondent numberother defendant companytested the suit, though the Corporation filed a written statement.
In the appeal preferred against the judgment and decree of the trial companyrt the respondent however rested its case as a licensee under the agreement and number as a lawful sub tenant since before 1959.
B and hereinafter referred to as the premises to the respondent.
To ascertain the intention, the High Court examined the agreement minutely, and companyrectly came to the companyclusion that the respondent was merely a licensee and number a tenant.
Thereafter the respondent moved the High Court by filing a writ petition which was allowed with a finding that he was protected licensee deemed tenant of the premises.
The respondent further submitted that in Khalil Ahmed Bashir Ahmed v. Tufelhussein Samasbhai Sarangpurwalal this Court interpreted a document with similar terms and companyditions as one of licence.
It was further submitted that, in any event, if the agreement was read in the companytext of the surrounding circumstances, there was numberescape from the companyclusion that it was one of lease, though intituled as one of licence.
During trial the respondent, while examining himself, asserted his claim as a lawful sub tenant since before 21 5 1959 and, alternatively, as a protected licensee since before 1 2 1973 on the basis of a lease and licence agreement hereinafter referred to as the agreement which he entered into with the Corporation on 12 3 1964.
Subsequently in 1975 the respondent filed an additional written statement reiterating his earlier stand as a lawful sub tenant and pleading an alternative case as a protected licensee under Section 15 A of the Act brought in the Statute Book in 1973.
The respondent, on the other hand, companytended that the High Court companyrectly interpreted the law and held that what was material was the intention of the parties in executing the agreement.
Besides the Corporation and the respondent, the appellant impleaded some others as defendants as according to it they were also in occupation of the premises under them.
In the first written statement filed on 30 3 1967 the respondent companytended that he was a lawful sub tenant of the Corporation in respect of the premises since before 21 5 1959, the day when the Bombay Act 49 of 1959 came into force giving protection to the existing sub tenants and that, therefore, he was number liable to be evicted.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by K. MUKHERJEE, J. The only question which falls for determination in this appeal is whether the respondent is a deemed tenant of the landlord under Section 15 A of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947 Act for short which companyfers such status upon a person, who was on 1 2 1973 in occupation of any premises or any part thereof, which is number less than a room, as a licensee.
Both the trial companyrt and the appellate companyrt answered the question in the negative recording companycurrent findings that there was an unauthorised sub letting in favour of the respondent and decreed the suit filed by the appellant landlord for his eviction, whereas the High Court, in its writ jurisdiction reversed those findings and dismissed the suit.
