HARI SHANKAR SONI Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Shri J.P. Agrawal, learned counsel for the petitioner has argued very strenuously that it be declared that the provisions of Section 20 of the M.P. Accommodation Control Act, 1961 are ultra vires as impinging upon the provision of equality clause of Art. 14 of the Constitution. The bone of contention of his argument is that there is no rational nexus between the object to be achieved by the statutory provision and the object for which the Act was brought on the statute book.

(2.) Before dealing with the question of vires, it is necessary to reproduce Section 20 of the M.P. Accommodation Control Act, 1961 : "Special provision for recovery of possession in certain cases : Where the landlord in respect of any accommodation is any company or other body corporate or any local authority or any public institution and the accommodation is required for the use of employee of such landlord, or in the case of a public institution, for the furtherance of its activities, then, notwithstanding anything contained in Section 12 or in any other law, the Court may, on a suit being filed before it in this behalf by such landlord, place the landlord in vacant possession of such accommodation by evicting the tenant and every other person who may be in occupation thereof, if the Court is satisfied -

(3.) The sheet anchor of Shri Agrawal's contention is the decision of the Supreme Court in case of Shri Ramkrishna Dalmia v. Shri Justice S.R. Tendolkar AIR 1958 SC 538: 1958 SCA 754. The principles enunciated in Dalmia's case (supra), by the Supreme Court have been repeatedly taken notice of both by the Apex Court as well as the different High Courts in the country. It is worthwhile to reproduce a portion of the Supreme Court's decision is Dalmia's case (supra), where S. R. Das, C.J. speaking for the Constitution Bench, laid down certain fundamental principles in this regard with regard to inhibition on the part of legislature forbidding any class legislation if such a classification is not founded on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes persons or things that are grouped together from others left out of the group and (ii) that the differentia must have rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the statute in question. The classification may be founded on different basis namely, geographical, or according to objects or occupations or the like. What is necessary is that there must be a nexus between the basis of classification and the object of the Act under consideration. It is also well established by the decision of Supreme Court that Art. 14 condemns discrimination not only by a substantive law, but also by a law of procedure.