KUNAL R CHAUDHARI Vs. PURSHOTTAM B TODI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application has been filed by the petitioner in Special Leave Petition (C) No. 16184 of 1996 which was dismissed at the admission stage on 26th August, 1996. While dismissing the special leave petition, this Court had given six months' time for the applicant to vacate the premises and deliver vacant possession to the respondent-landlord. It was specified that the said six months will expire on 26th February, 1997. The applicant was also directed to file the usual undertaking within four weeks - which he did. The applicant says that in view of the subsequent legislation, namely, the Maharashtra Ordinance No. 23 of 1996 [which has been later enacted into an Amendment Act] amending the provisions of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates [Control] Act, 1997 [Bombay Rent Act], The Bombay Land Requisition Act, 1948 and the Bombay Government Premises [Eviction] Act, 1955, creating the statutory relationship of landlord and tenant between the applicant and the first respondent [owner of the premises concerned herein], he should be discharged from the said undertaking. He says, he is entitled to continue in the premises as a statutory tenant.

(2.) The premises in question, belonging to the first respondent, were allotted to the applicant's mother in the year 1958 by the Government of Maharashtra under the Bombay Land Requisition Act. After the death of his mother in 1974, the applicant continued in possession. The applicant is not a Government servant but was allotted the same, being a homeless person, under what is called the "suppressed vacancy scheme".

(3.) In the year 1988, the first respondent filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court being Writ Petition No. 1881 of 1988 for a writ of mandamus directing the Government of Maharashtra to de-requisition the said premises and to hand over the possession of the same to him. While the said writ petition was pending, a Constitution Bench of this Court held in Grahak Sanstha Manch v. State of Maharashtra, (1994) 4 SCC 192: (1994 AIR SCW 2259), that the power to requisition under the Bombay Land Requisition Act cannot be exercised so as to deprive the landlord of the possession of the premises indefinitely or for an inordinately long time. The Court pointed out the distinction between acquisition and requisition and accordingly directed the premises requisition long ago to be re-requisitioned within a period of eight months. The writ petition filed by the first respondent was allowed by the Bombay High Court on 3rd July, 1996, following Grahak Sanstha Manch. The High Court directed the State Government "to pass an order of derequisition and hand over possession of the premises in question to the petitioner on or before 30th August, 1996". It is against the said decision that the appellant had filed the aforesaid Special Leave Petition (C) No. 16184 of 1996 which was dismissed by this Court while granting time till 26th February, 1997 to vacate the premises and deliver vacant possession of the same to the landlord.