ASHRAFI DEVI Vs. GANGA SAHAI KISHAN LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is tenant's petition under Article 227 of the Constitution against the order dated August II, 1986, of the Competent Authority constituted under the Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act 1956 (for short 'the Act'). By this order the competent authority allowed an application of the respondent-landlord filed under S. 19(l)(a) of the Act seeking permission to file proceedings for eviction against the petitioner-tenant. The suit premises comprise one shop, measuring 10' x 6' in Bazar Sita Ram in the walled city of Delhi.

(2.) The permission was granted principally on the grounds that the tenant did not file ration card of her family to prove that her husband and she herself did not constitute joint family and further she did not give any account or record of her monthly income derived from the shop premises in question though she gave daily turn over of the business being carried on therein. The competent authority held that on that account the tenant was not entitled to any protection under the Act and that she could aquire an alternative accommodation by spending Rs. 60.00 per month. It was pointed out that she could get the alternative accommodation at the rate Re. l.00 per sq. ft. (Commercial). The competent authority finally held that the tenant was having sufficient income and means and status to find an alternative shop, if evicted from the shop premises in question.

(3.) The application under S. 19(l)(a) was filed in April 1978, six month after an earlier application filed by the respondent-landlord was dismissed by a Division Bench of this Court by judgment dated November 1977, in C.W. No 202/77. This earlier application was filed in may 1975 and this was also allowed by the copmetent authority and permission was granted to the landlord to file eviction proceedings against the tenant. This order was, however, reversed by this Court in C.W. No. 202/77. The grounds on which permission was sought in the first application as well as the present one are almost identical. When C.W. 202/77 came up for hearing before a learned single Judge of this Court, he referred the matter to a Division Bench to determine the question whether "the means" of the tenant within the meaning of S. 19(4)(a) of the Act to find alternative accommodation for a shop in which the tenant was carrying on business could include the means of the husband of the tenant who was living with the tenant in a residential house but carried on his own business in another shop. The Court answered the question in favour of the tenant and applying the test laid held that the tenant did not have the means to find an alternative accommodation if she were evicted from the shop in question. The order of the competent authority granting permission to the landlord was set aside.