K PONNUSAMY NAICKER AND SON, REP BY ITS MANAGING PARTNER P SIGAMANI, OLD WASHERMANPET, MADRAS Vs. ESTATE OFFICER (COMMISSIONER), CORPORATION OF MADRAS, LAND AND ESTATES DEPARTMENT, MADRAS AND PRINCIPAL CITY CIVIL JUDGE, CITY CIVIL COURT BUILDINGS, MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is an erstwhile lessee of the Corporation. The lease for the premises was created somewhere in the year 1979. It was a lease for one year, which expired somewhere in the year 1980 or 1981. The lessee continued to occupy the premises. Nothing happened till 1990, when a notice was sent to the lessee under Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1975 (Act No.1 of 1976), (hereinafter called as 'the Act' for the sake of brevity). In that, it was stated that the possession of the petitioner was unauthorised and as such, he was required to give reasons as to why proceedings should not be initiated against him for his eviction under the provisions of the Act. This notice was served by the Estate Officer. The petitioner objected to that notice suggesting that he was continuously giving the rent and as such his occupation could not be said to be unauthorised. The proceedings were taken up before the Estate Officer and the Estate Officer, by his order dated 30.10.1991, passed an order of eviction. Before that, again objections were raised before him during the pendency of the proceedings. There was nothing new in those objections from the earlier objections, which were already raised on 23.7.1990. The petitioner filed an appeal under the provisions of the Act before the City Civil Court and the appeal came to be dismissed by the impugned judgment dated 9.11.1994. These two concurrent orders are under challenge before me in the present writ petition.

(2.) The learned Senior Counsel Mr.T.R.Rajagopal earnestly argued that the very initiation of the proceedings under Section 4 was incorrect and illegal and was stained with illegality. He pointed out that in the first place the petitioner could not be said to be in the unauthorised occupation as the petitioner was continuously paying the rent right up to the month when the notice was served against him. The further contention is that under Section 4 of the Act, the Estate Officer was required not only to state as to why the objection had become unauthorised, but also to specify the grounds on which the order of eviction is proposed to be made. That not having been done, the notice was bad in law and could not initiate proper proceeding under the Act. Learned Senior Counsel invites my attention to subsection (2) to Section 4, which is as under:-

(3.) Learned Senior Counsel further argues that it is not as if every unauthorised occupant has to be ousted from the premises, but it is the discretion left to the authority concerned to decide as to whether it was necessary to oust such an unauthorised occupant and at times for the good reasons given, the said authority could even desist from ousting such person. The learned counsel pointed out that on account of the notice being defective, a prejudice has caused to him as he could not understand as to what are the reasons for his ouster. In support of his contention, the learned senior counsel has very heavily relied upon a Division Bench judgment of the Bombay High Court reported in A.I.R.1992 Page 372 "MINOO FRAMROZE BALSARA -vs- UNION OF INDIA". Lastly, the learned Senior Counsel pointed out that the action was being taken only against the petitioner while the other equally circumstanced lessees or occupants were spared and thus, the Corporation was showing a violent discrimination against the petitioner.