RAM PALAT SINGH Vs. SRI KALPNATH RAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this writ petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution the petitioner has prayed for quashing the revisional order of the District Judge, Azamgarh dated 19.11.1983 and the allotment order dated 11.11.1983 and the order in Norm-B dated 11.1 1.1983 passed by the Rent Control and Eviction. Officer/District Supply Officer, Azamgarh. The petitioner has also prayed for the issue of a direction or order commanding respondents Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 not to disturb his occupation of the premises in dispute and also to grant such other and further relief as may be necessary.

(2.) According to the petitioner Sri Ram Palat Singh, the relevant facts are these: House No. 23 situate in mohalla Naroli Ward No. 14, Azamgarh belongs to Parmeshwar Lal Gupta, respondent No. 2. He (petitioner), is an engineer in the Public Works Department of Uttar Pradesh and was transferred from Jaunpur to Azamgarh in July, 1974 and occupied the aforesaid house in Oct., 1974 for residential purposes. The area in which the house was situate was brought within the Municipal Limits of Azamgarh on or about the 5th April, 1975 and since then the house become subject to the provisions of the U. P. Urban Buildings Regulation of letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 (briefly the Act). The landlord continued to accept rent from him without any objection. He, therefore, became entitled to regularisation of his occupation of the house under the provisions of Sec. 14 of the Act. One Sri Abdul Qavi Khan, Executive Engineer (P. W. D ), was transferred to Azamgarh, and made an application for allotment of the said house. The application of Sri Khan was rejected by the District, Supply Officer by his order dated 21.12.1979 (Annexure 1 to the writ petition) and his (petitioner's) occupation of the house was held to be good. At that time the stand taken up by him was that he was entitled to the benefit of Sec. 14 of the Act. Sri Kalap Nath Rai, who is a Minister of State in the Government of India applied for allotment of the house. The Rent Control Inspector visited the house on 27.9.1983 and made certain enquiries from the petitioner's wife and submitted a report that very day (Annexure 2 to the writ petition). No prior notice of the proposed inspection was given to him for any member of his family. The Inspector came to the conclusion that there was likely to be a vacancy in respect of the house in question and, therefore, recommended that necessary notice may be issued according to law. He (petitioner) came to know that the District Supply Officer. Azamgarh was taking steps for declaring the house either vacant or likely to be vacant and, therefore, he made a representation dared 3 8.1983. The District Supply Officer, by his order dated 11-11-1983, held that the house was likely to fall vacant and passed the order of allotment of the house in favour of Sri Kalap Nath Rai, respondent No. I. (hereinafter to he referred to as the allottee) By the same order the District Supply officer also rejected the release application of the landlord. (The order dated 11.11.1983 is Annexure 4 to the writ petition.) The order in Form B in favour of the allottee was passed on 11.11.1983 (Annexure V to the writ petition). In pursuance of the allotment order, in petitioner's absence, the allottee took forcible possession of a part of the house in question on 12.11.1983 with the help of the police. The allottee could not take possession over the entire house because his petitioner's) wife and children were living there and that part continued, to be in his occupation. The District Supply Officer (respondent No. 4) had not heated the house to be a case of vacancy or deemed vacancy or unauthorised occupation by him (the petitioner). He had treated it as a case of likely vacancy. The District Supply Officer could not sit in appeal over the order of his predecessor-in-office who had accepted the case that the petitioner's occupation of the house had become regularised under Sec. 14 of the Act. This order was not challenged by the landlord or by anyone else and became final and binding and cannot be reopened. The proceedings for allotment of the house were collusive. He had been maintaining his family at Azamgarh because he had not been able to get a residential accommodation from the Government at places to which he was transferred from Azamgarh. He admitted that he was transferred from Azamgarh to Gorkhpur in the year 1977. From Gorkhpur he was transferred to Deoria and from Deoria to Lucknow. At none of these places he could get a house for residence of his family and, therefore, continued to maintain his family in the house in question at Azamgarh. He never shifted his family from this house. His forcible dispossession by the allottee was causing him irreparable loss which was incapable of compensation in terms of money.

(3.) Aggrieved by the orders of the District Supply Officer dated11.11.1983. the petitioner filed a revision in the court of the District Judge, Azamgarh The learned District Judge dismissed the revision by order dated 19.1 1.1983 (Anneature 8 to the writ petition). The petitioner filed the present writ petition in this Court on 21.12.1983.