SHREEPRAKASH SHIVRAM PODDAR Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, by means of this writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, seeks direction or order calling upon the respondents to forthwith hand over quite, vacant and peaceful possession of the flats referred to in Exhibit-I to the petition. The petitioner has also sought a declaration that the provisions of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, the Bombay Land Requisition Act and the Bombay Government Premises (Eviction) (Amendment) Act, 1996 (the Maharashtra Act XVI of 1997) and/or the Ordinance dated 25th December, 1997, published in the Maharashtra Government Gazette, Extraordinary dated 26th December, 1997, are ultra vires unconstitutional and violative of fundamental rights of the petitioner guaranteed under the Constitution of India. Though the petitioner has prayed for the declaration of the aforesaid provisions unconstitutional, the learned Counsel for the petitioner did not press this prayer. However, we may note that the said provisions have already been declared ultra vires and unconstitutional by this Court in the case of (Ranjit P. Gohil v. State of Maharashtra), reported in 1998 (4) Mh. L. J. 513.

(2.) INITIALLY, the present petition was filed only against respondent Nos. 1 and 2. The rest of the respondents are arrayed as party respondents pursuant to the orders of this Court passed in the Chamber Summons taken out for amendment to the petition.

(3.) THE petitioner is the President of Akhil Bharat Varshiya Marwari Agarwal Jatiya Kosh, a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and also under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, for short, "society" ). The society owns lands and buildings, bearing cadastral Survey Nos. 691-698/10 of Matunga Division, outside the Fort of Bombay and known as "agarwal Nagar". Respondent No. 1 is the State of Maharashtra and respondent No. 2 is the Commissioner of Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay, a statutory corporation constituted under the provisions of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1888. Respondent Nos. 3 to 19 are occupants of different flats in two different buildings owned by the society.