Permanent tenant constructions and Article 227 limits: concurrent factual findings were upheld and eviction restored.

Tenant-made lofts, cabins, pillars and allied constructions were treated as permanent structures because the courts found them substantial, durable, sufficiently annexed to the premises, and erected without the landlord's consent; that breach of tenancy conditions supported eviction. The Supreme Court also held that Article 227 does not permit appellate reappreciation of evidence: concurrent findings on whether the structures were permanent can be disturbed only if perverse, unsupported by evidence, or vitiated by legal error. As those findings were based on a correct application of the legal test and a possible view of the evidence, the High Court's interference was unsustainable and the eviction decree was restored.

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Issues: (i) Whether the tenant's constructions amounted to permanent structures attracting forfeiture of tenancy under the rent law and the Transfer of Property Act; (ii) Whether the High Court could interfere under Article 227 of the Constitution with concurrent findings of fact on the nature of the structures.

Issue (i): Whether the tenant's constructions amounted to permanent structures attracting forfeiture of tenancy under the rent law and the Transfer of Property Act.

Analysis: The relevant enquiry was whether the constructions, viewed as a whole, were intended to be lasting and were sufficiently annexed to the premises to be treated as permanent. The nature of the materials used, the mode and degree of annexation, the dimensions of the cabins and lofts, the ease or difficulty of removal, the purpose for which they were erected, and their durability were all material. On the evidence, the trial court and the appellate court found that the tenant had erected lofts, cabins, pillars and allied structures which were substantial, durable, and not merely temporary fittings. Those courts also found that the structures were put up without the landlord's consent.

Conclusion: The constructions amounted to permanent structures and constituted a breach of tenancy conditions, supporting eviction in favour of the landlords.

Issue (ii): Whether the High Court could interfere under Article 227 of the Constitution with concurrent findings of fact on the nature of the structures.

Analysis: Jurisdiction under Article 227 is one of judicial superintendence and not of appellate reappreciation of evidence. Concurrent findings of fact may be disturbed only where they are perverse, based on no evidence, or reached by misdirection in law. The courts below had applied the correct legal tests to the evidence and had taken a possible view on the question whether the structures were permanent. Since the findings were neither perverse nor unsupported by material, the High Court exceeded the permissible limits of interference by substituting its own view on appreciation of evidence.

Conclusion: The High Court ought not to have interfered under Article 227, and its reversal of the concurrent findings was unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The landlords were entitled to restoration of the eviction decree and possession order, and the tenant could not resist eviction on the ground that the constructions were temporary.

Ratio Decidendi: A High Court exercising jurisdiction under Article 227 cannot upset concurrent findings of fact on a possible appreciation of evidence unless those findings are perverse, based on no evidence, or vitiated by a clear error of law.

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