MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court recently ruled that tenants who acquire partial ownership rights in a tenanted property cannot be evicted under rent laws as they assume a dual status that bars continuation of their eviction.
“If one of the owners has sold his right to the sitting tenant, the tenant’s right in the property from the tenancy enhances to that of ownership. Once the tenant becomes owner, he will have the right to not proceed with the eviction suit,” a single judge bench of Justice Rajesh S Patil said on April 7, allowing the application filed by three tenants of Cicilia House in Thane who came to acquire a 50% share in the tenanted property during pendency of their application. The single judge bench set aside an appellate court’s verdict ordering the tenants’ eviction.
The dispute arose from an eviction suit filed by the co-owners of the housing society against the tenants on grounds of unauthorised construction, subletting, change of user, bona fide requirement and arrears of rent. The tenants challenged the suit in the trial court, which ruled in their favour in June 2009. Aggrieved by the order, the landlords approached the appellate authority; on May 3, 2014, the appeal was answered in their favour and the trial court order was set aside.
The tenants then filed a revision application in the high court. During the pendency of the application, they purchased 50% share in the building from the legal heirs of one of the co-owners. The conveyance deed was registered on April 22, 2016, making the tenants co-owners of the premises.
Meanwhile, one of the original co-owners raised objections to the eviction suit. But an advocate representing him subsequently informed the court that he did not want to continue with the eviction proceedings and urged the bench to treat the same as withdrawn.
The tenants claimed that the eviction suit was filed by “playing fraud” on them. Relying on a 2006 Supreme Court judgment, they argued that if one of the co-owners of a property objected to filing of the eviction suit, eviction proceedings came to an end.
Allowing the tenants’ application, the court held that “once a tenant also becomes a co-owner, he is in a dual capacity – that of the ownership to the extent of share purchased and tenancy to the extent of his tenancy agreement as on date.”
As soon as a tenant purchases a part of the ownership right, another co-owner can’t file or continue eviction proceedings against them under the Rent Act, the bench clarified, setting aside the order passed by the appellate court while upholding the trial court’s decision.