COMMISSIONER OF POLICE Vs. LAKSHMI CHAND GUPTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is brought from a decision of G.K. Mitter J., making absolute a Rule for Mandamus whereby two orders of the Commissioner of Police, Calcutta, dated March 1 and March 11, 1960, refusing to grant licence to the respondent Lakshmi Chand Gupta to run an eating house, known as Lakshmi Hotel or Shri Lakshmi Hotel, were directed to be withdawn or cancelled and the Police Commissioner ordered to renew licences in favour of the respondent, authorising him to run the Hotel for the years 1959-60 and 1960-61.

(2.) The respondent had rented the first floor of premises No. 170/2D, Lower Circular Road, Calcutta, in the year 1958 and obtained in the course of the year a licence under the Calcutta Police Act, 1866, to run a boarding and eating house. The licence was due to expire, on March 31, 1959. Before its expiry, the respondent applied for renewal on the 25th of March 1959, for the year 1959-60. On May 16, he received a communication from the Commissioner of Police that it had been brought to his notice that on several occasions women of questionable character visited the hotel and liquor supplied to customers. This, it was said, involved infringement of one of the conditions of the licence which had been granted to the respondent in respect of the boarding house. He was accordingly required to show cause why his application for renewal of licence should not be refused. The respondent complied with this requisition and showed cause denying the allegation that such women had ever been allowed on the premises or liquor served to the customers. He characterised the information as false and malicious and relied on the circumstance that no prosecution for infringement of the conditions of the licence had, at any time, been launched against him. On August 20, 1959, the respondent had a personal interview with an Administrative Officer attached to the establishment of the Commissioner of Police. At that interview, he requested expeditious disposal of his application for renewal. On October 24, 1959, he was informed that his application had still been receiving attention. On February 5, 1960, he received another communication in which it was stated that in view of the fact that there was a residential school for boys and girls situate in a part of the same building in which the hotel was being run, it was considered undesirable to grant a licence for eating house establishment at the place. It was also said that there was a cycle-cart factory in the same building. He was accordingly asked to say what he had to say before a final decision was reached in the matter of granting or refusing licence. On receipt of this notice, the respondent wrote to the authority, concerned denying that there was a residential school for boys and girls in the same building. He stated that the school was situate in a separate building at a distance of 100 feet from the permises where the eating house was run. As regards the cycle-cart factory, he said that it was not a factory at all but merely a shop where cycle parts were assembled which could be reached by a separate entrance. He asserted that only two workers were employed in the shop which had since been closed. He called attention to the fact that there was a Chinese restaurant at a distance of only 6 feet from the gate of the school and there was another hotel run by the Salvation Army opposite the respondent's hotel. He suggested that these facts had been known to the authorities when a licence was issued to him to run the hotel for the year 1958-59. He accordingly repeated his request for the issue of a licence for the year 1959-60 at an early date.

(3.) On March 1, 1960, the respondent was informed that the Commissioner of Police had, on a consideration of "all facts and circumstances", rejected his application for renewal of the licence for the year 1959-60. Despite this refusal, the respondent applied on March 4, 1960, for a licence to run the hotel for the year 1960-61. This application was also rejected and he was informed on the 11th of March 1960 that this application too had been refused. Thereafter, he moved this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution and obtained a Rule Nisi requiring the appellant the Commissioner of Police to show cause why he should not be directed to withdraw or cancel his orders dated March 1, and March 11, 1960, refusing to renew licenses to the respondent to run the hotel for the years 1959-60 and 1960-61.