Your landlord can’t just walk in: Kerala High Court protects tenants from owners who ‘trespass’ into rented home

‘Doesn’t absolve criminal liability’

• This is a case where the landlord is alleged to have trespassed into a tenanted room and committed mischief by throwing out the household articles belonging to the tenant.
• Both the trial court and the appellate court found no reason to disbelieve the testimonies of these independent witnesses, who had no apparent motive to falsely implicate the accused, and based the conviction primarily on their evidence.
• It is well settled that a court exercising revisional jurisdiction will interfere with the findings of the courts below only when such findings suffer from illegality, impropriety, or perversity.
• Unless it is shown that the judgment of the trial court or the appellate court is perverse, unreasonable, or suffers from non-consideration of relevant material or misreading of evidence, interference in revision is not warranted.
• The revisional court cannot reappreciate the evidence as an appellate court and substitute its own view merely because another view is possible.

In tenant’s lawful possession

• Although the accused is the owner of the room into which he is alleged to have trespassed, the evidence on record clearly establishes that the said room had been let out to the tenant and was in his lawful possession at the time of the occurrence, as a tenant.
• The mere fact that the accused is the owner of the room does not, ipso facto, absolve him of criminal liability when such entry is effected with the intention to commit an unlawful act.
• Since the possession of the tenanted room has been clearly established to be with the tenant, any unauthorised entry into the said room with the requisite criminal intent squarely attracts the offence of house trespass, notwithstanding his ownership of the room.
• Furthermore, the testimony of the eyewitnesses, corroborated by other material evidence, clearly establishes that the accused also committed an act of mischief by forcibly throwing out the household articles belonging to the tenant.
• Taking into account the nature of the dispute between the accused and the tenant, as well as the motive which led to the commission of the offence…the sentence imposed by the trial court, as affirmed by the appellate court, is somewhat harsh and warrants interference.
• Without interfering with the finding of guilt, the sentence imposed on the accused is modified to imprisonment till the rising of the court and to pay compensation of Rs 15,000.

‘Case of trespass’

• According to the prosecution, the accused had allegedly entered a room rented out to the complainant in 2009 and thrown out household articles, causing damage worth about Rs 10,000.
• While the tenant and his wife were not present at the time, independent witnesses testified that they saw the accused commit the act.
• The trial court had convicted the accused and sentenced him to imprisonment, which was later reduced by the appellate court.
• The accused was sentenced to one year of imprisonment under IPC Section 454 and six months under Section 427.
• He then approached the Kerala High Court with a revision plea.