PANNALAL JAGANNATH PRASAD GUPTA Vs. THE STATE OF MADRAS REPRESENTED BY THE SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT, HOME DEPARTMENT AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by a certain Pannalal Jagannath Prasad Gupta from the judgment of Veeraswami, J., in W.P. No. 218 of 1959 1 upholding the order by Government exempting certain premises from Section 7 of the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, by virtue of powers vested in Government under Section 13 of the Act. The facts are very simple, and the essential facts might be set forth as follows.

(2.) BY virtue of G.O. Ms. No. 705, Home, dated 19th March, 1958, Government exempted premises No. 140/2, Audiappa Naicken Street and 17/1, Anna Pillai Street, G.T., Madras from the provisions of Section 7 of the Act, in favour of the landlord (second appellant). The appellant instituted the writ proceeding on the ground that the premises with which we are now concerned (No. 140/2, Audiappa Naicken Street) constituted a non -residential building in his occupation, for the purpose of his business, for over thirty years, and that the second respondent, who was already occupying five stores for his business in Kotwal Bazaar Market, had no genuine need for this building. The order of the Government exempting this building from the provisions of Section 7 was unjustifiable, under the circumstances in which that order was passed; even the bona fides of the order has been attacked, though not directly.

(3.) SO much for the general principles. We shall immediately proceed to the individual facts of this case, upon which the Government claimed that the exemption was perfectly justified.