LAKHMI CHAND KHEMANI Vs. KAURAN DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal was filed with special leave of this Court granted on August 14, 1964. Various interesting questions of law were sought to be raised on behalf of the appellant but in our view they do not arise at this stage. The appeal must be confined to the points decided in the courts below.

(2.) The case appears to us to be somewhat out of the ordinary. One Mehtab Singh was the owner of a certain building known as Abkar Building, situate in Mohalla Ganda Nala, Gali Rajan, Delhi The appellant was a tenant under him in respect of certain accommodation in the building. On June 3, 1955, Mehtab Singh filed a suit under the Delhi and Ajmer Rent Control Act, 1952, against the appellant for his ejectment. On October 11, 1956 that suit was decreed. The appellant filed an appeal against that decree which, however, was dismissed on March 27, 1957. He thereafter moved the High Court of Punjab in revision but here also he was unsuccessful. The precise date of the dismissal of the application in revision does not appear on the record but it was sometime between March and September 1957.

(3.) On February 8, 1957, an Act called the Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1956 came into force in Delhi. By a notification issued under S. 3 of this Act, the area in which the building with which we are concerned was situate, was declared a slum area for the purposes of the Act which meant that the buildings in that area were unfit for human habitation or that for various reasons they were detrimental to safety, health or morals of human beings. The date of this notification does not appear from the record but it is not in dispute that it was issued before September 1957.