Definitions — Building, Landlord, Tenant, Standard Rent (Section 2)

Every contest under the Goa rent law is won or lost on Section 2. Whether a structure is a building, whether the claimant is a landlord, and whether the occupant is a tenant together fix the jurisdiction of the Rent Controller and the reach of statutory protection. One point trips up most aspirants: the Goa Act of 1968 does not use the phrase standard rent at all. Its controlled rent is fair rent under clause (h), determined under Chapter III. This note works through clauses (e), (h), (j), (l) and (p) of Section 2 with the verified bare text and the case law that gives them content.

The scheme of Section 2 and the standard-rent myth

The full name of the statute is the Goa, Daman and Diu Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1968 (Act 2 of 1969), which came into force on 1 October 1969. Section 2 opens with the familiar dictionary-clause formula — “In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires” — and then runs through clauses (a) to (p). The four load-bearing definitions for an aspirant are clause (e) “building”, clause (h) “fair rent”, clause (j) “landlord” and clause (p) “tenant”, supported by clause (l) “member of the family”.

Note at the outset a terminological trap. The expression standard rent belongs to the Delhi and Bombay Rent Acts; the Goa statute speaks instead of fair rent (clause h) for residential and commercial buildings, and fair rate (clause g) for hotels and lodging houses. Clause (h) defines “fair rent” simply as “the fair rent fixed under Chapter III”, while clause (g) defines “fair rate” as the rate fixed under Section 37 and revised under Section 38. The mechanism of fixing it sits in Section 12, where the Rent Tribunal determines fair rent, with Section 15 barring the landlord from claiming or receiving anything in excess. So when a question asks about “standard rent” in the Goa context, the correct answer is fair rent under clause (h) read with Chapter III.

“Building” under clause (e): what is and is not let

Clause (e) defines a “building” as “any building, or part of a building, which is, or is intended to be, let separately for use as a residence or for commercial use or for any other purpose”. The definition is deliberately wide: a single flat, a shop, a godown or even a portion of a structure each qualifies once it is capable of being let separately. The phrase “or is intended to be” brings within the Act premises not yet let but earmarked for letting, which matters for the control-of-letting machinery in Chapter II.

The definition is inclusive in two respects. Sub-clause (i) draws in “the garden, ground and out-houses, if any, appertaining to such building”, so appurtenant open land follows the tenancy and cannot be carved out to defeat protection. Sub-clause (ii) draws in “any furniture supplied by the landlord for use in such building”, so a let of a furnished flat remains a single building for rent-control purposes rather than splitting into a tenancy plus a separate hire of chattels.

The closing words exclude “a room in a hotel or lodging house”; those are governed instead by the fair-rate regime (Sections 37 to 40) and the manager/owner provisions, reflecting the Act's stated object of controlling “rates of hotels and lodging houses”. The central interpretive problem — whether a transaction is a lease of the building at all, or really a lease of a running business — was settled in Uttamchand v. S.M. Lalwani, AIR 1965 SC 716. The Supreme Court distinguished a lease of the building from a lease of the business carried on in it and applied a test of dominant intention; where the dominant intention is to transfer the business, the transaction falls outside rent-control protection. That distinction governs Goa premises too.

Fair rent (clause h) — the Goa analogue of standard rent

Because the topic carries the label “standard rent”, it is worth fixing the Goa equivalent precisely. Clause (h) makes “fair rent” a term of art keyed entirely to Chapter III. Chapter III opens at Section 36 (application of the chapter) and runs through Section 12's tribunal-determination power, Section 13 (cases where increase in fair rent is admissible), Section 14 (increase in rent in certain cases), Section 15 (landlord not to claim or receive anything in excess of fair rent) and Section 16 (prohibition of receipt of premium). The substantive consequence of the definition is that once fair rent is fixed, the contractual rent is displaced and the ceiling becomes the fair rent; this is taken up in detail in the notes on fair-rent fixation and revision and on lawful increases in rent.

A drafting feature worth remembering: by amendment, the proviso to Section 3 was substituted to provide that “the fair rent once fixed shall automatically stand increased by 2% per annum.” This built-in escalation is peculiar to the Goa scheme and distinguishes it from the static standard rent of older statutes. For “fair rate” (clause g), the parallel machinery is Section 37 (determination) and Section 38 (revision), with Section 39 barring charges in excess of the fair rate.

“Landlord” under clause (j): receipt, not ownership

Clause (j) defines a “landlord” as “a person who, for the time being, is receiving, or is entitled to receive, the rent of any building, whether on his own account or on account of, or on behalf of, or for the benefit of, any other person or as a trustee, guardian or receiver for any other person or who would so receive the rent or be entitled to receive the rent, if the premises were let to a tenant.” The hinge is receipt or entitlement to receive rent — not ownership. A trustee, a guardian, a receiver, a power-of-attorney holder or a manager collecting for the beneficial owner is therefore a landlord competent to invoke the Controller's jurisdiction.

This receipt-based test mirrors the parallel definitions construed by the Supreme Court. In Dwarka Prasad v. Dwarka Das Saraf, AIR 1975 SC 1758, the Court read the cognate “landlord” definition broadly, treating a person entitled to receive rent as a landlord regardless of formal title. The position that a person need not be the absolute owner to maintain eviction was reinforced in Kanta Goel v. B.P. Pathak, (1977) 2 SCC 814, where a co-owner-legatee was held competent to seek possession even without probate of the will, because the statutory test is entitlement to receive rent, not perfected ownership. The closing limb — “would so receive… if the premises were let” — extends the status to an owner of vacant premises, which is why the control-of-letting provisions in Chapter II, and the eviction grounds discussed in the note on grounds of eviction, are available to such a person.

“Member of the family” (clause l) and bona fide need

Clause (l), substituted by Amendment Act 8 of 1987, defines “member of the family” in three situations. In relation to an individual landlord it means “his spouse, son, daughter” and includes “father, mother, grandson solely dependent on the landlord for maintenance”, with a proviso preventing a married daughter and her husband from both claiming the benefit of Section 5. In relation to a joint Hindu family landlord it means the members of that family, and in relation to joint owners other than a joint Hindu family it means the family members of each such owner.

This definition is not idle. It controls who counts as the beneficiary when a landlord recovers possession for occupation by family under Section 5 (release for use of the landlord), and it shapes the bona fide requirement analysed in the note on eviction for bona fide need. Because the class is closed and partly conditioned on sole dependence for maintenance, a landlord cannot stretch “family” to a collateral relative who falls outside the enumerated categories.

“Tenant” under clause (p): the widest protected class

Clause (p) defines a “tenant” as “any person by whom or on whose account or behalf the rent of any building is, or but for special contract would be, payable” and then, by the 1978 amendment, “includes in the event of his death the surviving spouse, or any son, or unmarried daughter or father or mother who had been living with him as a member of his family upto the date of his death and a sub-tenant and also any person continuing in possession after the termination of his tenancy, but shall not include any person against whom any order, or decree for eviction has been made.”

Four classes of person are thus tenants: the contractual tenant; specified heirs living with him until death; a sub-tenant; and, crucially, “any person continuing in possession after the termination of his tenancy” — the statutory tenant. The phrase “but for special contract would be payable” catches an occupant whose private arrangement purports to make rent payable by someone else. The single exclusion is a person against whom an eviction order or decree has been made, which is why payment of arrears before that stage is decisive in the note on eviction for arrears of rent.

Statutory tenant and heritability under clause (p)

The inclusion of “any person continuing in possession after the termination of his tenancy” imports the concept of the statutory tenant: an occupant whose contractual tenancy has ended but who stays on under the protection of the Act until a decree of eviction is passed. The leading authority on the nature of this estate is Gian Devi Anand v. Jeevan Kumar, AIR 1985 SC 796 (also (1985) 2 SCC 683). A Constitution-strength bench held that where a rent statute defines “tenant” to include a person continuing in possession after termination of the contractual tenancy, that person retains a heritable interest, and the protection extends to both residential and commercial premises. The statutory tenancy is therefore not a mere personal privilege that dies with the tenant.

That reasoning was applied directly to this Act in Smt. Sushilabai Dantye v. Ganpat Kudtarkar, 1998(4) ALL MR 458 (Bombay High Court, Panaji Bench). The Court held that statutory tenancy under the Goa Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1968 is heritable, and that the 1978 amendment to clause (p) did not create heritability for the first time but restricted it to the enumerated class of relations who lived with the tenant until death. The Court further held that eviction of such heirs lies before the Controller under the Act, the civil court's jurisdiction being barred by Section 56. This Goa-specific ruling is the one most worth citing in an answer on clause (p).

Buildings the definitions do not reach: Section 3

The width of clause (e) is cut back by Section 3, which lists buildings to which “nothing in this Act shall apply”. These include buildings belonging to Government, a State Housing Board, a local authority or an Industrial Development Corporation; buildings vested in the Custodian of Evacuee Property; and — the most litigated exemption — “any newly constructed building for a period of fifteen years from the date of its completion” (the period was raised from four to fifteen years by Amendment Act 8 of 1994).

Section 3 also exempts, for buildings let for the first time on or after 20 April 1994, premises whose monthly rent exceeds Rs. 2,500 (residential) or Rs. 5,000 (commercial). The practical lesson is that a structure can satisfy clause (e) as a “building” yet still fall outside rent control because Section 3 disapplies the Act — in which case the parties are remitted to the general law of landlord and tenant and the ordinary civil court. The interplay of definition and exemption is developed in the note on the object and application of the Act and at the subject hub.

Why the three definitions decide jurisdiction

The three definitions operate as a jurisdictional gateway. If the subject is not a “building” within clause (e) — say a vacant agricultural plot, or a transaction held to be a lease of business under Uttamchand — the Controller has no power and the matter goes to the civil court. If the claimant is not a “landlord” entitled to receive rent within clause (j), the eviction petition is incompetent at the threshold. And if the occupant is not a “tenant” within clause (p) — for instance a rank trespasser, or a person against whom a decree has already been made — the protective and procedural scheme simply does not engage.

Conversely, once all three are satisfied, Section 56 bars the civil court and the Act's machinery becomes exclusive, as Sushilabai Dantye confirms. For an exam answer, the disciplined approach is to state the bare clause, fix the controlling case — Uttamchand for “building”, Dwarka Prasad and Kanta Goel for “landlord”, Gian Devi Anand and Sushilabai Dantye for “tenant” — and then draw the jurisdictional consequence. That sequence also feeds directly into the eviction analysis under Section 22 grounds of eviction.