Sitaram Natani and Another vs Abbas Ali and Others

Sheel Nagu, Judge

This petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India assails an interlocutory order dated 25/06/2012 passed in Civil Suit No. 42A/2011, whereby application under order I Rule 10 of CPC preferred by defendant No. 2/ petitioner herein for directing the plaintiff to substitute Shabbir Hussain in place of petitioner Abbas Ali, has been rejected. Learned counsel for petitioners is heard on the question of admission.

Learned counsel for petitioners primarily contends by citing decisions in the case Devchand Vs. Mangilal1983 MPWN SN 32 and Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd. Vs. Regency Convention Centre and Hotels Pvt. Ltd. and Others, that trial court ought to have allowed the application under Order I Rule 10 of CPC.

The contention of learned counsel for petitioners is that in the suit for eviction of accommodation based on nuisance, the co-owner Shabbir Hussain ought to be the plaintiff, since the present plaintiff Abbas Ali is the brother of Shabbir Hussain and from the joint ownership of Abbas Ali and Shabbir Hussain, the defendant has purchased the accommodation in question.

The trial court while rejecting application under Order I Rule 10 of CPC has assigned reasons that a suit for eviction under the M.P. Accommodation Control Act, 1961 need not to be by the owner but has to be by a landlord. The definition of landlord under the Accommodation control Act is much wider than the definition of owner. Even the person who is not the owner of the accommodation but is accepting the rent or is acting as an owner can very well fall within the definition of landlord. In this background the trial court has held that failure to make co-owner Shabbir Hussain will not be fatal to the suit.

This court under the limited supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of Constitution of India finds that reasons assigned by the trial court while passing the impugned order are justified in the attending facts and circumstances of the case and could have been assigned for passing the impugned order. Merely because a different view could have been taken by the trial court while deciding the application under Order I Rule 10 of CPC, the impugned order cannot be said to be untenable in law from the view point of supervisory jurisdiction of this Court.

The decision in the case of Mumbai International Airport Private Limited (supra) is of no assistance to the petitioner as it does not pertain to the M.P. Accommodation Control Act which recognizes distinction between the landlord and owner. The other citation in the case of Devchand Vs. Mangilal (supra) merely holds that under Order I Rule 10 of CPC the plaintiff cannot be compelled to join another person against his choice and therefore, this decision also is of no avail to the petitioners. In view of the above, this petition under Article 227 of Constitution of India deserves to be and is hereby dismissed without any order as to cost.