Evicting a Tenant in Hyderabad: Rent Control Act, Notice and Court

This guide is for landlords in Hyderabad whose tenant will not vacate or has stopped paying rent, and for tenants who have received a notice to vacate. It explains the Telangana rent control law of 1960 and the buildings it does not cover, the grounds on which a Rent Controller can order eviction, who hears these cases in Hyderabad, notice and registration under the general law, the civil suit for buildings outside the Act, and what the law says about taking possession by force.

Which law applies · Buildings outside the Act · Grounds for eviction · Rent Controller and appeals · Notice and the general law · No eviction by force · For tenants · Civil suit · Time limits · Model Tenancy Act

Which law applies

The Telangana (formerly Andhra Pradesh) Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1960 applies to the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and to all municipal corporations and municipalities in the State, and the Government may extend it to other areas by notification (section 1(2)). It was adapted to Telangana by the Telangana Adaptation of Laws Order, 2016, and courts still often call it by its Andhra Pradesh name.

• What it covers: a “building” is any house or hut, or part of one, let or to be let separately for residential or non-residential purposes, with gardens, garages and out-houses let with it and furniture supplied by the landlord, but “does not include a room in a hotel or boarding house” (section 2(iii)). In a 2022 Hyderabad case the Supreme Court rejected the argument that a small shop was outside this definition (Gopi v Sri Ballabh Vyas).
• The core protection: for a building the Act covers, “A tenant shall not be evicted whether in execution of a decree or otherwise except in accordance with the provisions of this section or sections 12 and 13” (section 10(1)).
• Ending the tenancy does not take the tenant outside the Act: the Act’s definition of “tenant” includes “a person continuing in possession after the termination of the tenancy in his favour” (section 2(ix)). It also includes the surviving spouse, son or daughter of a deceased tenant who lived with the tenant in the building as a member of the family up to the tenant’s death.

Buildings the Act does not cover

Section 32, as substituted by the 2005 amendment, says the Act shall not apply:

• Government buildings: “to any building belonging to the State Government or the Central Government, or Cantonment Board or any local authority” (section 32(a)).
• New or rebuilt buildings, for fifteen years: “to any building constructed or substantially renovated, either before or after the commencement of this Act for a period of fifteen years from the date of completion of such construction or substantial renovation” (section 32(b)). Substantial renovation means not less than seventy five per cent of the premises built new, and the date of completion is the date intimated to the authority or of property tax assessment, whichever is earlier.
• The rent test: to any building the rent of which “as on the date of commencement” of the Andhra Pradesh Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control (Amendment) Act, 2005 exceeds Rs 3,500 a month in the areas covered by the Municipal Corporations in the State, and Rs 2,000 a month in other areas (section 32(c)). According to a Full Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, the amendment came into force on 28 May 2005 (Ramvilas Bajaj v Ashok Kumar, 2007).

The rent test refers to the rent as on the 2005 commencement date. The section does not say how it applies to a tenancy that began after that date, so take advice on whether your building is inside or outside the Act before choosing a route. The Government may also exempt any building or class of buildings by notification in the Gazette (section 26). In the 2022 Hyderabad case, the tenants’ plea that the building had been dismantled and rebuilt was rejected by the courts below for want of evidence, and the Supreme Court noted that no evidence established the seventy five per cent renovation requirement.

Grounds for eviction under the Act

A landlord who seeks to evict a tenant “shall apply to the Controller for a direction in that behalf”, and the Controller gives the tenant a reasonable opportunity to show cause (section 10(2)). The Controller can order the tenant to put the landlord in possession if satisfied that:

• Rent not paid: the tenant “has not paid or tendered the rent due by him in respect of the building within fifteen days after the expiry of the time fixed in the agreement of tenancy with his landlord or in the absence of any such agreement, by the last day of the month next following that for which the rent is payable” (clause (i)). If the Controller is satisfied that the default “was not wilful”, he may give the tenant a reasonable time, not exceeding fifteen days, to pay, and on payment the application is rejected.
• Sub-letting or change of use: without the landlord’s written consent, the tenant has transferred the lease or sub-let the building or any portion, where the lease confers no such right, or used the building for a purpose other than that for which it was leased (clause (ii)).
• Waste or nuisance: acts of waste “likely to impair materially the value or utility of the building”, or conduct which is a nuisance to occupiers of other portions of the building or of neighbouring buildings (clauses (iii) and (iv)).
• Alternative building or absence: the tenant has secured an alternative building or ceased to occupy the building for a continuous period of four months without reasonable cause (clause (v)).
• Denial of title: the tenant has denied the landlord’s title or claimed a right of permanent tenancy, and the denial or claim was not bona fide (clause (vi)). Where the Controller finds such a denial or claim bona fide, the landlord may sue for eviction in a civil court (proviso to section 10(1)).

Other grounds:

• Landlord’s own occupation or business: a landlord who is not occupying a residential building of his own in the city, town or village, and requires the building for his own occupation, may apply; there are parallel provisions for a non-residential building needed for a business the landlord carries on or bona fide proposes to start (section 10(3)(a)). Where the tenancy is for a specified period agreed between the parties, the landlord cannot apply on these grounds before that period expires (section 10(3)(d)). The Controller orders possession if satisfied that the claim is bona fide, subject to the exceptions in section 10(4) for tenants in notified essential services (unless the landlord is in such a service too) and for buildings used as recognised educational institutions, and may give the tenant a reasonable time, not exceeding three months in the aggregate (section 10(3)(e)).
• If the landlord does not use it: if a landlord who recovered possession on these grounds does not occupy the building for the stated purpose within one month, or vacates it without reasonable cause within six months, the evicted tenant may apply to the Controller to be restored to possession (section 10(5)).
• Repairs or rebuilding: the Controller may order possession where the building is bona fide required for repairs, alterations or additions that cannot be carried out without vacating, or, for a building of not more than two floors, for immediate demolition to erect a new building, on the landlord’s undertaking to offer the building back to the tenant (section 12).
• Particular landlords: sections 10-A to 10-C, added in 2005, allow certain landlords, including released or retired members of the armed forces, retired Government employees, widows, persons with a disability as defined, and persons aged sixty-five or more, to “apply to the Court for recovering immediate possession” of premises let out by them, subject to the conditions in those sections.

An eviction order binds all sub-tenants, whether or not they were parties, unless it was obtained by fraud or collusion (section 23).

Who hears the case in Hyderabad, and appeals

• Rent Controllers: in Hyderabad and Secunderabad, rent control cases are heard by Rent Controllers who are judicial officers of the City Small Causes Court. The court’s own published list of its courts’ e-mail addresses (undated; the file was created in December 2020) names a Principal Rent Controller and Additional Rent Controllers at Hyderabad, and a Principal and an Additional Rent Controller at Secunderabad.
• Appeal: “Any person aggrieved by an order passed by the Controller may, within thirty days, from the date of such order, prefer an appeal in writing to the Chief Judge, Small Causes Court in the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and elsewhere to the Subordinate Judge, or if there are more than one Subordinate Judge, to the Principal Subordinate Judge having original jurisdiction over the area aforesaid”, excluding the time taken to obtain a certified copy (section 20(1)). The appellate authority may, while confirming an eviction order, grant the tenant an extension of time (section 20).
• Revision: the High Court may call for and examine the records of an order of the appellate authority, or of the Controller in execution, to satisfy itself as to its “legality, regularity or propriety” (section 22). Subject to this, the appellate decision is final (section 20(4)).
• Execution: eviction orders under the Act are executed by the Controller (section 15).

Notice to vacate and the general law of leases

The Transfer of Property Act, 1882 sets general rules for leases. Its extent clause leaves out territories that were in Part B States immediately before 1 November 1956 unless the Act is extended to them by notification, and the India Code note listing extensions does not mention Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh or Telangana. The Supreme Court applied section 109 of the Act to a Hyderabad tenancy in 2022 (Gopi v Sri Ballabh Vyas), but whether these sections apply to a particular Hyderabad property as statute or as general principles is a question for advice. The rules below are stated as the Act words them. Inside the rent Act, they do not by themselves allow eviction (see above).

• Default notice period: “in the absence of a contract or local law or usage to the contrary”, a lease for a purpose other than agriculture or manufacturing “shall be deemed to be a lease from month to month, terminable, on the part of either lessor or lessee, by fifteen days’ notice” (section 106(1)). A rent agreement with its own notice clause, or a local law, can displace this default.
• From receipt: the period “shall commence from the date of receipt of notice” (section 106(2)).
• Form and delivery: the notice must be in writing, signed by or on behalf of the person giving it, and either sent by post, or tendered or delivered personally to the party or to one of his family or servants at his residence, or, if that is not practicable, affixed to a conspicuous part of the property (section 106(4)).
• A short period: a notice is not invalid “merely because the period mentioned therein falls short of the period specified”, where a suit or proceeding is filed after the expiry of the period specified in the section (section 106(3)).
• How a lease ends: among other ways, by efflux of the time limited, by surrender, by forfeiture (including where the tenant sets up a title in a third person or claims title himself, with written notice of the landlord’s intention to determine the lease), and on the expiry of a notice to quit duly given (section 111). On the determination of the lease, “the lessee is bound to put the lessor into possession of the property” (section 108(q)).
• Accepting rent after the end: if the tenant remains in possession after the lease ends and the landlord accepts rent or otherwise assents to his continuing in possession, the lease is, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, renewed from month to month or year to year according to its purpose (section 116). A notice to quit is waived, with the express or implied consent of the person to whom it is given, by an act of the person giving it showing an intention to treat the lease as subsisting, such as accepting rent that became due after the notice expired (section 113).

Registration of rent agreements in Telangana

The central text of the Registration Act, 1908 makes compulsorily registrable “leases of immovable property from year to year, or for any term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent”. The text as in force immediately before 2 June 2014 and continued in Telangana (Registration and Stamps Department copy), as substituted by Andhra Pradesh Act 4 of 1999 with effect from 1 April 1999, lists “leases of immovable property” without that qualification (section 17(1)(d)), and “lease” includes an agreement to lease (section 2(7)). A document that must be registered but is not does not affect the property and cannot be received as evidence of a transaction affecting it, though it may be received as evidence of a collateral transaction not itself required to be registered (section 49 and its proviso). What this means for a particular unregistered rental agreement is a question for advice.

No eviction by force

• The Supreme Court: in Rame Gowda v M. Varadappa Naidu (2004) 1 SCC 769, decided on 15 December 2003, the Supreme Court recorded its earlier ruling that “a landlord did commit trespass when he forcibly entered his own land in the possession of a tenant whose tenancy has expired”, and that in that ruling the Court quoted with approval the statement that the law “will not permit any person to take the law in his own hands and to dispossess a person in actual possession without having recourse to a court”.
• Six-month suit: a person “dispossessed without his consent of immovable property otherwise than in due course of law” may sue to recover possession “notwithstanding any other title that may be set up in such suit”; the suit must be filed within six months of dispossession (Specific Relief Act, 1963, section 6). See our guide on illegal possession and encroachment.
• Water, power and other amenities: for a building under the rent Act, “No landlord shall, without just or sufficient cause, cut off or withhold any of the amenities enjoyed by the tenant” (section 14(1)). Amenities include “supply of water, electricity, passages, staircases, light, lavatories, lifts and conservancy or sanitary services”. Contravention is punishable with fine which may extend to two thousand rupees (section 29).
• The police: the Hyderabad City Police standard operating procedure on property disputes (Circular Memo of 7 March 2022, as published on its website), under Dispute Type 12, headed “NON RENEWAL OF LEASED LAND / FLAT etc.”, for a complaint that a person who leased a building or flat “has not renewed lease deed and is not vacating the premises”, tells officers that “The Complainant to be advised to approach the concerned court” and that “Police not to act suo-motu though it may appear to be cheating etc”. The circular applies to the Hyderabad City Police.

For tenants

• Receipts: a tenant paying rent or advance “shall be entitled to obtain a receipt for the amount paid duly signed by the landlord or his authorised agent” (section 8(1)).
• If the landlord refuses rent: the tenant may by written notice ask the landlord to name, within ten days, a bank into which rent may be deposited to the landlord’s credit. If no bank is named, the tenant is to remit the rent by money order, and if that is refused, may deposit it before the authority prescribed under the Act (section 8). A similar deposit is allowed where the landlord’s address is unknown or there is a bona fide dispute about who is entitled to the rent (section 9).
• Rent while the case is pending: a tenant against whom an eviction application is pending cannot contest it before the Controller, or appeal, unless he has paid or deposited all arrears up to date and continues to pay or deposit rent. If he fails, the Controller or appellate authority “shall, unless the tenant shows sufficient cause to the contrary, stop all further proceedings” and order the tenant to put the landlord in possession (section 11).
• Amenities cut off: the tenant may complain to the Controller, who, if the tenant satisfies him that the amenities were cut off or withheld without just or sufficient cause, may pass an interim order directing immediate restoration, and that interim order “may be passed under this sub-section without giving notice to the landlord” (section 14(2) and (3)).
• Fair rent: either the landlord or the tenant may apply to the Controller to fix the fair rent (section 4(1)). The Supreme Court held in a 2020 Hyderabad case that an application can be made “even during currency of contractual tenancy” (N. Motilal v Faisal Bin Ali).

Civil suit for a building outside the Act

For a building the rent Act does not cover, a landlord recovers possession through a civil suit; a person entitled to possession of specific immovable property “may recover it in the manner provided by the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908” (Specific Relief Act, section 5).

• Possession and mesne profits: in a suit for possession and for rent or mesne profits, the court may decree possession, rent or mesne profits accrued before the suit, and an inquiry into rent or mesne profits from the filing of the suit until delivery of possession, relinquishment of possession with notice through the court, or the expiry of three years from the decree, whichever first occurs (Code of Civil Procedure, Order XX Rule 12). Mesne profits are the profits the person in wrongful possession actually received or might with ordinary diligence have received, with interest (section 2(12)).
• Valuation: in a suit to recover immovable property from a tenant, including one holding over, court fee is computed on the premium, if any, and on the rent payable for the year before the plaint, and rent includes damages for use and occupation payable by a tenant holding over (Telangana Court-Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1956, section 40(2)). The value for jurisdiction is, unless otherwise provided, the same (section 50(1)). For a building in the district of Hyderabad, such suits go to the City Civil Court (Telangana Civil Courts Act, 1972, section 3), at the level that depends on the suit’s value. A building elsewhere in the metropolitan area may fall under the civil courts of a different district.

See our guide on filing a civil case.

Time limits

• Possession: a suit by a landlord to recover possession from a tenant: twelve years from when the tenancy is determined (Limitation Act, 1963, Schedule, Article 67).
• Arrears of rent: three years from when the arrears become due (Article 52).
• Forcible dispossession: a suit under section 6 of the Specific Relief Act: six months from the date of dispossession.

When a period starts on your facts is a question for advice.

The Model Tenancy Act, 2021

The Union Cabinet approved the Model Tenancy Act on 2 June 2021, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs circulated it to the States on 7 June 2021 for adoption by enacting a fresh law or amending existing rental laws. In a Rajya Sabha reply published on 25 July 2022, the Ministry said that, as per information available with it, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Assam had revised their tenancy laws on its lines; Telangana was not named. The official sources we checked do not show a Telangana law based on the Model Tenancy Act; on those sources, rented buildings remain governed by the 1960 Act and the general law. In 2020, answering the appellants’ submission that the Central Government had circulated a model rent control law, the Supreme Court said that, as the appellants’ counsel himself submitted, model legislations “are only guidelines, which in no manner, can have any effect on the statutory provisions of 1960 Act” (N. Motilal).

Related guides: property disputes, illegal possession and encroachment, partition of family property, City Civil Court, Hyderabad and filing a civil case.

For a discussion about a tenancy or eviction matter with Musab Hashmi & Associates, call +91 89771 24916 or send an enquiry. Do not include identity numbers or copies of documents in the first message.

General legal information, not legal advice. Checked on 27 October 2026 against the Telangana Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1960 (India Code text with the amendments to 2005 and the 2016 adaptation), the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, the Registration Act, 1908 as in force immediately before 2 June 2014 and continued in Telangana (Registration and Stamps Department text) and its central text, the Specific Relief Act, 1963, the Limitation Act, 1963, the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, the Telangana Court-Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1956, the Supreme Court judgments in Rame Gowda v M. Varadappa Naidu (15 December 2003), N. Motilal v Faisal Bin Ali (30 January 2020) and Gopi v Sri Ballabh Vyas (22 September 2022), the Andhra Pradesh High Court Full Bench judgment in Ramvilas Bajaj v Ashok Kumar (30 April 2007), the City Small Causes Court, Hyderabad’s published list of courts, the Hyderabad City Police circular of 7 March 2022, and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs statements of 2021 and 2022.