NIRMALA CHHABRA Vs. ADDL DISTRICT JUDGE LUCKNOW

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution is directed against an order dated August 10, 1967 passed by the Estate Officer, Lucknow Cantonment, under Section 5 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Un authorised Occupants) Act, 1958 (annex-ure 3) directing the petitioner and her husband to vacate the house situate in Lucknow Cantonment which had origi nally been allotted to the petitioner's husband when he was posted as an Army Officer at Lucknow and which after his transfer continued to be occupied by the petitioner. An appeal filed against that order under Section 9 of the said Act was dismissed by the Additional District Judge, Lucknow, under his order dated 7-8-1968 (annexure 4) on the preliminary ground that since the petitioner had not filed any objection against the notice issued to her under Section 4, she was not entitled to file this appeal.

(2.) ' In this writ petition the peti tioner challenges the validity of the aforesaid Act under which these pro ceedings were taken and further ques tions the legality of the appellate order passed by the Additional District Judge under which he dismissed the petitioner's appeal without going into the merits thereof.

(3.) THE point that was contended on behalf of the petitioner was that the Public Premises (Eviction of Unautho rised Occupants) Act. 1958 was ultra vires in so far as it offended the princi ples contained in Article 14 of the Con stitution. The Punjab Public Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1959, of which the provisions were almost similar to the provisions of the said Act was struck down on this ground by the Supreme Court in Northern India Caterers Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Punjab, AIR 1967 SC 1581. In view of this Supreme Court decision, learned Chief Standing Counsel conceded that Sec tion 5 of the said Act, as it was origi nally enacted in 1958, was invalid be cause it provided two parallel remedies to the Government to evict unauthorised occupants from their premises by either filing a suit under ordinary law of the land in regular court or taking proceed ings under this Act. He, however, con tended that this Act was retrospectively amended by the Public Premises (Evic tion of Unauthorised Occupants) (Amend ment) Ordinance, 1968, which came in force on June 17, 1968 and was subse quently replaced by the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) (Amendment) Act, 1968. Through this amendment a new Section 10-E was in troduced which provided: "No civil court shall have jurisdic tion to entertain any suit or proceeding in respect of the eviction of any person who is in unauthorised occupation of any public premises or the recovery of the arrears of rent payable under sub section (1) of Section 7 or the damages payable under sub-section (2) of that section or costs awarded to the Central Government under sub-section (4-A) of Section 9 or any portion of such rent, damages or costs." So it would be evident that after this amendment the Government could only proceed under the provisions of this Act to evict the unauthorised occupants from the premises and could not follow the remedy of ordinary regular suit. Sub section (2) of Section 5 of the Amending Act gave retrospective effect to this Act by providing: