RANJIT PURI Vs. SAT BHUSHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner-tenant, faced with the predicament of having to wriggle out of the concurrent finding in favour of the respondent-landlord on an averment of personal bonafide necessity, argues that the rent legislation ruling the roost does not provide for vacation of commercial premises for personal necessity. It is further argued that the Apex Court had already referred the relevant matter to the constitutional Bench of the Apex Court which has not yet entered upon the reference. The learned counsel further states that though the relevant law has been framed by the State of Punjab but it has not come to be notified in the gazette and had not, thus, become applicable.

(2.) The plea raised is plainly denuded of merit in view of the law laiddown by the Apex Court in Harbilas Rai Bansal Vs. The State of Punjab,1996 14 HRR 1. In that case, the Apex Court had recorded a categorical finding invalidating the classification of buildings into a residential and non-residential. That classification was held to be violative of provisions of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The Apex Court noticed therein that in the rent legislation pertaining to the pre-1956 period, the eviction of a tenant from a non-residential building on an averment of the bonafide requirement for the own use of the landlord was provided.

(3.) That right of the landlord was eclipsed by the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction (Amendment) Act ( Act 29 of 1956) which came into force on 24.9.1956. It is the validity of that amendment which was impugned in Harbilas Rai Bansal's case (supra). That classification of buildings, as already noticed, was quashed as being violative of the Constitution of India.