Bona fide need is the most litigated head of eviction under any rent control statute, and the Goa Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1968 is no exception. Unlike the fault-based grounds in Section 22, the landlord's right to recover possession for personal occupation is located in a distinct cluster of provisions — Sections 23 to 27 — which balance a landlord's genuine requirement against the tenant's statutory protection. This note maps the statutory architecture of bona fide need, the conditions a landlord must satisfy, the role of the Controller, the comparative-hardship filter, and the body of Supreme Court authority that judiciary and CLAT-PG aspirants must master.
Where bona fide need sits in the statutory scheme
A common examination trap is to assume that bona fide need is a ground under Section 22. It is not. Section 22 enumerates the fault-based grounds — arrears, unauthorised subletting or change of user, material damage, nuisance, acquisition of alternative accommodation, cessation of occupation, and denial of title. Bona fide requirement for the landlord's own occupation is instead carved out in Section 23, titled “Landlord's right to obtain possession”, which operates subject to Section 24 (saving for fixed-term tenancies) and is adjudicated under Section 25 (“Controller to decide right to possession”). The drafting deliberately separates a tenant's wrongdoing from a landlord's legitimate personal need, and an aspirant must cite Section 23, not Section 22, when answering a bona fide need question. See our overview of the general grounds of eviction and the subject hub for the wider scheme.
Section 23(1)(a): bona fide need for a residential building
For a residential building, Section 23(1)(a) gives the landlord two distinct routes. Under sub-clause (i), the landlord may apply if he is not occupying a residential building of his own in the city, town or village concerned and requires the premises for his own occupation or for the occupation of any member of his family. The negative pre-condition is critical: a landlord already in occupation of his own residence in the same locality cannot invoke this route, because the statute presumes his shelter need is already satisfied. Under sub-clause (ii), a landlord who owns more than one building in the same locality and is in occupation of one of them may nonetheless recover another “bona fide” for his own occupation — here the legislature inserts the express qualifier bonafide, signalling that the Controller must probe genuineness with particular care where the landlord is not strictly shelterless. The phrase “member of his family” is read liberally to include dependants ordinarily residing with the landlord, such as a son setting up a separate household or aged parents. A landlord need not be wholly without a roof; the question is whether the requirement asserted is real and present, not whether some alternative arrangement is theoretically possible. The Controller's enquiry under this route is comparative within the landlord's own estate — which of his buildings he genuinely requires — and not a roving examination of how the tenant might be inconvenienced.
Section 23(1)(b): non-residential buildings and the limited ground
The Goa Act treats commercial premises with notable restraint. Section 23(1)(b) confines the bona fide need ground for non-residential buildings to a narrow category: a building used for the purpose of keeping a vehicle or adapted for such use (essentially a garage), where the landlord requires it for his own use or to the possession of which he is entitled in the locality. There is no general bona fide ground for ordinary shop or office premises let for business. This is a significant point of distinction from statutes such as the Delhi Rent Control Act, which expressly permit eviction of commercial tenants for the landlord's business need, and aspirants should be alert to the difference when answering comparative questions across rent control codes. The narrowness is deliberate: the Goa legislature evidently sought to insulate established commercial tenancies from displacement on personal-need grounds, leaving the landlord to the fault-based grounds in Section 22 or to demolition and reconstruction under Section 30 if he wishes to recover business premises. Where the Goa statute does permit recovery, the principle that the landlord is the best judge of his own requirement — affirmed in Ragavendra Kumar v. Prem Machinery & Co., (2000) 1 SCC 679 — applies with full force: the tenant cannot dictate how the landlord ought to adjust himself, and the choice of which property to occupy rests with the landlord alone. For the rent-fixation backdrop relevant to commercial premises, see standard rent fixation and revision.
Additional accommodation and institutional need
Two further sub-provisions of Section 23 round out the bona fide need scheme. Where a landlord is occupying only part of a residential building, he may — notwithstanding the general rule in sub-section (1) — apply for an order against a tenant occupying the whole or any portion of the remaining part if he requires additional accommodation for himself or his family. This is an important qualification: need is not extinguished merely because the landlord already has some roof over his head, and a growing family or changed circumstances can found a genuine claim for more space within the same building. Separately, where the landlord is a religious, charitable, educational or other public institution, it may recover a residential building required for the purposes of the institution — a recognition that an artificial person can have a bona fide requirement no less than a natural one. In each case the application proceeds before the Controller and is tested for genuineness under Section 25, with the same evidentiary discipline that governs an individual landlord's claim. The Explanation to Section 23 further clarifies that a “landlord” for these purposes is the person for whose benefit the rent is received, but excludes an agent, trustee, guardian or receiver acting merely in a representative capacity.
Special categories: armed forces, government servants and NRIs
The Act confers an accelerated right of recovery on certain classes. Under Section 23(3), a landlord who is a member of the armed forces, or an employee of the Central Government, Railways or a Central public-sector undertaking liable to transfer (and their widows in defined circumstances), may recover possession on a certificate or affidavit that the premises are bona fide required and that no other suitable residence is available, with a summary procedure under Section 23(3A) limiting the tenant's right to contest except by leave. Section 23(3-B), inserted in 2009, allows a Non-Resident Indian to recover possession for bona fide occupation, provided the NRI became owner before the tenancy was created (except where ownership came by inheritance); an NRI who recovers possession may not sell or re-let for three years, failing which the evicted tenant may seek restoration. These special routes carry their own comparative-hardship and procedural safeguards.
The five-year bar on transferee-landlords
To curb collusive transfers engineered to defeat a sitting tenant, the first proviso to Section 23(1) bars a person who becomes a landlord after the commencement of the tenancy by an instrument inter vivos from applying under the bona fide need provision before the expiry of five years from the date the instrument was registered. A second proviso, inserted by the 1988 amendment, reduces this period to two years in the case of a gift from parents. A further proviso prevents a landlord who has already recovered one residential (or non-residential) building under the section from again recovering another of the same character — a one-building-per-type limit that prevents serial evictions. These conditions are jurisdictional: an application filed before the bar expires is not maintainable. See key definitions for the statutory meaning of “landlord” and “tenant” that frames these provisos.
Section 25: the Controller's satisfaction of bona fides
Section 25 is the operative adjudicatory provision. The Controller “shall, if he is satisfied that the claim of the landlord under Section 23 is bonafide, make an order directing the tenant to put the landlord in possession of the building on such date as may be specified”, and if not so satisfied, shall reject the application. Satisfaction of bona fides is thus the jurisdictional fact on which the order rests. The Supreme Court's most quoted exposition of bona fide need, Shiv Sarup Gupta v. Dr. Mahesh Chand Gupta, (1999) 6 SCC 222 (also reported as AIR 1999 SC 2507), holds that the words “need” and “require” denote “a certain degree of want with a thrust within demanding fulfilment”, and that requirement is “not a mere desire” born of “whim or fancy” but “a felt need which is the outcome of a sincere, honest desire”, in contradistinction to a mere pretence to evict. The same decision is the leading authority on the scope of revisional scrutiny of such findings: a revising court must satisfy itself that the order is “according to law” but may not re-appreciate evidence as an appellate court would. The Controller must therefore distinguish a genuine requirement from a pretext, judging the totality of circumstances — the size of the family, the suitability and adequacy of the landlord's existing accommodation, and the bona fides of his conduct — rather than dictating to the landlord how else he might manage.
Comparative hardship: the tenant's statutory shield
The first proviso to Section 25 imports a comparative-hardship filter, but in carefully limited terms. It directs the Controller, in the case of an application under sub-section (3) of Section 23, to reject the application “if he is satisfied that the hardship which may be caused to the tenant by granting it will outweigh the advantage to the landlord”. The textual confinement to Section 23(3) applications is examinable: comparative hardship is not, on the face of the statute, a defence to an ordinary Section 23(1)(a) residential claim. The second proviso gives the Controller power to grant the tenant a reasonable period of not less than three months and not exceeding six months to deliver possession, extendable so as not to exceed six months in the aggregate. This balancing exercise reflects the protective object of the Act discussed in our introduction and object note.
The 'landlord is the best judge' doctrine
A recurring theme in bona fide need jurisprudence is judicial deference to the landlord's own assessment of his needs. In Sarla Ahuja v. United India Insurance Co. Ltd., (1998) 8 SCC 119, the Supreme Court held that “it is not for the tenant to dictate terms to the landlord as to how else he can adjust himself without getting possession of the tenanted premises”, and that while deciding bona fides it is “quite unnecessary to make an endeavour as to how else the landlord could have adjusted himself”. The Court added that where the statutory pre-conditions are met and the landlord makes out a prima facie case, the Controller may presume the requirement is bona fide. Ragavendra Kumar v. Prem Machinery & Co., (2000) 1 SCC 679, reinforces that the landlord is the best judge of his requirement and enjoys complete freedom to choose which of his properties to occupy — the tenant having no say in that choice. Goa Controllers apply these principles when testing satisfaction under Section 25.
Crucial date and subsequent events
Bona fide need is ordinarily assessed as on the date the application is filed, but the doctrine of subsequent events permits a cautious re-evaluation. In Hasmat Rai v. Raghunath Prasad, (1981) 3 SCC 103 (AIR 1981 SC 1711), the Supreme Court held that although rights are normally adjudicated as they stand at the commencement of the lis, a court is not precluded from taking “cautious cognizance” of subsequent changes of fact or law that have a material bearing on the entitlement to relief or on the moulding of relief. Crucially, for a subsequent event to defeat the landlord's claim it must wholly satisfy or completely eclipse the need — a partial, marginal or speculative change is insufficient. Thus if, during the pendency of the proceedings, the landlord acquires alternative accommodation that fully meets the very requirement he pleaded, the foundation of his claim collapses; but a minor improvement in his circumstances will not. The principle that the need must subsist through the proceedings, including appeal and revision, is settled, and a Goa landlord whose requirement has genuinely and entirely disappeared by the date of adjudication cannot insist on possession. The burden of establishing such an extinguishing subsequent event lies on the tenant who asserts it.
Post-eviction safeguards: Section 27 and vexatious claims
The statute guards against bona fide need being used as a cover. Under Section 27, where a landlord who has obtained possession under a Section 25 order does not himself occupy the building for the specified purpose within one month, or having occupied it vacates without reasonable cause within three years, the evicted tenant may apply to the Controller to be restored to possession. This converts the landlord's averment of need into an enforceable undertaking. Section 28 empowers the Controller to award compensation up to two months' rent where an eviction application is found frivolous or vexatious, and Section 26 bars eviction against tenants in notified essential services and against recognised educational institutions. Read together, Sections 23 to 28 ensure that bona fide need operates as a genuine personal-occupation right rather than a device to circumvent the tenant protections explained in our note on eviction for arrears of rent.
Frequently asked questions
Is bona fide need a ground under Section 22 of the Goa Buildings Rent Control Act?
No. Section 22 contains only the fault-based grounds (arrears, subletting, damage, nuisance and the like). Bona fide requirement for the landlord's own occupation is provided in Section 23, adjudicated under Section 25. Citing Section 22 for bona fide need is a common error.
Can a Goa landlord evict a tenant from a shop or office for his own business?
Generally no. Section 23(1)(b) permits the bona fide need ground for non-residential premises only where the building is used for keeping a vehicle or adapted for such use (a garage). There is no general ground to recover ordinary commercial premises for the landlord's business, unlike under the Delhi Rent Control Act.
What is the difference between 'need' and 'desire' in bona fide requirement cases?
In Shiv Sarup Gupta v. Dr. Mahesh Chand Gupta, (1999) 6 SCC 222, the Supreme Court held that requirement is not a mere desire born of whim or fancy; it must be a felt need, the outcome of a sincere and honest desire, distinguished from a pretext to evict. The intensity demanded by 'requires' is higher than mere desire.
Does comparative hardship apply to every bona fide need application in Goa?
No. The first proviso to Section 25 confines the comparative-hardship test to applications under Section 23(3) (armed forces, government servants and similar categories). On the statute's text it is not a defence to an ordinary Section 23(1)(a) residential claim.
Can a person who recently bought the building immediately seek eviction for bona fide need?
No. The first proviso to Section 23(1) bars a person who became landlord by an instrument inter vivos after the tenancy began from applying for five years from registration of the instrument. This is reduced to two years for a gift from parents.
What happens if the landlord does not occupy the premises after eviction?
Under Section 27, if the landlord fails to occupy the building for the specified purpose within one month, or vacates without reasonable cause within three years, the evicted tenant may apply to the Controller to be restored to possession. The Controller must make an order accordingly.