SENIOR ADM AND ACCTS OFFICER Vs. MANIAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) W.A. No. 377/82 :This writ appeal is filed against a judgment of our learned brother, Jeevan Reddy J. The appellant in this writ appeal is the Senior Administrative and Accounts Officer, Atomic Minerals Division, Department of Atomic Energy, who is one of the respondents to the writ petition (hereinafter he will be called as the appellant also). The appellant has a branch office at Hyderabad and it is housed in a rented building No. 1-11-200 Begumpet, Hyderabad. That building belongs to one E.P.B. Manian (hereinafter referred to also as "the writ petitioner"). That building was requisitioned by the State Government (another respondent to the writ petition) from the writ petitioner some time back, and allotted to the appellant under the provisions cf the A.P. Building (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1960 (hereinafter referred to also as "the Rent Control Act"). Since then the appellant has been occupying that building. While the building is under the occupation of the appellant, it became the subject matter of a partition suit in O.S. No. 627/75 on the file of the VI Addl. Judge, City Civil Court, Hyderabad. In that partition suit, the building had fallen to the share of the writ petitioner and his sons. Thereupon, the writ petitioner applied on 29-4 80 to the Authorised officer under the Rent Control Act seeking release of the building from the operation of the above Act. He sought recovery of its possession from the appellant. His grounds were that his sons and himself had need to move out of their rented house and occupy the building This is a ground which the above Rent Control Act calls "as ground of personal occupation" and which the Act looks upon with favour. The idea is that the need of the owner to occupy his own building should not be totally overlooked. The Rent Control Act therefore permits the authorised officer to release the building in favour of the owner for the latter's personal occupation. On receipt of Manian's application, the authorised officer under the Rent Control Act, called for the views and comments of the appellant who would be affected by any order that he might pass releasing the building from the purview of the Rent Control Act. The appellant wrote to the authorised officer on 20-6-80 opposing Manian's request for release of the building and asserting his own need to continue to occupy the building to be greater than that of Mauian's. There was thus a contest between the writ petitioner and the appellant each asserting his need for the building to be greater than that of the other. The authorised officer presumably after a consideration of the rival claims, wrote to the appellant upholding the claim of Manian as against that of the appellant. Through his Memo. No. 507/ Accommodation/80, dated 8-4-81 the authorised officer wrote to the appellant releasing the building from the purview of the Rent Control Act and ordering its possession to be restored back to Manian for his personal occupation. This is a statutory order which the authorised officer is competent to make. The appellant is bound to vacate the building. As a consequence, the authorised officer requested the appellant to vacate the building within three months by securing alternative accommodation. The three months grace period would then expire by 21-7-81. But from the beginning never did the appellant entertain any idea of vacating the building. The appellant wrote to the authorised officer on 6-5-81 informing him that "this Department is tot in a position to vacate the above premises for want of suitable alternative accommodation for our laboratory and other offices............". The appellant also wrote a similar letter to Manian. Manian in his turn, wrote to the authorised officer on 30-6-81 requesting him to get the building vacated as per his Memo dated 8-4-81. The authorised officer wrote once again to the appellant on 10-7-81 seeking the vacation of the building. But this request produced no greater effect on the appellant than the Memo of April, 1981. The authorised officer finally wrote to the appellant on 11-8-81 threatening him with forcible dispossession unless the appellant vacates the building within thirty days. Neither requests nor threats had shaken of the appellant's will of defiance. The appellant wrote back to the authorised officer asserting this time that under law the building could not have been legally released by the authorised officer. That was on 27-8-81, and was just a few days before the thirty-days time limit set by the authorised officer would expire. The authorised officer, therefore, wrote another letter to the appellant explaining how the exemption claimed by the appellant under G 0. Ms. No, 487, would be inapplicable to Sec. 3 of the Act Caught between the request of Manian on the one hard and defiance of the appellant on the other, the authorised officer wrote to the Estate Officer authorising him to evict the appellant by force from the building. The estate officer in his turn, wrote to the appellant asking him to deliver peaceful possession of the building by 19-10-81 to the landlord threatening him with forcible dispossessi on in case of his failure to vacate. Even then the appellant did not care to vacate the building. The three-months time stipulated by the authorised officer had passed by 11-9-81. As the time stipulated by the estate officer had expired by 19-10-81, the estate officer started on 19-10-81 eviction proceedings by use of force. While the estate officer was going on with eviction proceedings on 19-10-81 he was telegraphically directed by the authorised officer to stop eviction. The estate officer, acting in compliance with those directions, stopped eviction proceedings. The stay of eviction was the result of orders obtained by the appellant on that day, from the State Government. On 19-10-81, the appellant applied to the State Minister for Housing and Accommodation "to restrain and suspend the eviction proceedings.........". Acting on the above application of the appellant, the State Minister directed the authorised officer to cease and desist from evicting the appellant. The Minister's order said, "no action for eviction need be taken pending examination of the merits of the application filed by the appellant".

(2.) Having come to know that the appellant had filed an application to the Minister and had obtained the aforementioned order, Manian had applied to the Minister on 21-10-81 to rescind the Ministerial order and to allow the eviction proceedings to go on. But, Manian was not successful before the Minister. He was now driven to a corner. Not having been successful in enlisting the support of the State Government, Manian filed a writ petition in this court. Manian challenged in his writ petition, not only the validity of the Minister's order of stay of eviction, but also the jurisdiction of the Government to entertain such an application from the appellant. Manian's prayer in the writ petition was for issuance of an appropriate mandate from this court to the State Government to implement the orders of the authorised officer dated 8-4-81 releasing the building from the purview of the Rent Control Act, and directing delivery of possession of the building to him.

(3.) In the writ petition, Manian contended that the order passed by the authorised officer under Section 3 (4) (a) of the Rent Control Act releasing the building in his favour cannot be reviewed or interfered With, in any way, by the State Government. The principal defence of the appellant in the writ petition is, that the State Government has power to review an order of release passed by the authorised officer. The appellant's minor contention is that the writ petition was premature in view of the fact that it has been filed when the State Government had not finally decided upon the merits of the appellant's contentions. Substantially, the defence of the State Government has run on the same lines as that of the appellant.