RAM PRAKASH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has filed the present writ petition for quashing the orders dated July 13, 1994, December 2, 1998 and December 18. 2000, passed by the District Development and Panchayat Officer-cum-Collector, Ludhiana; the Commissioner and the Divisional Commissioner, Patiala Division, Patiala, respectively. By the said orders, the petitioner was ordered to be evicted from the shop in dispute. Copies of these orders have been produced as Annexures P3, P5 and P7 with the writ petition.

(2.) THE brief facts giving rise to the present writ petition are that in the year 1976 the petitioner was given the shop in dispute on lease on a monthly licence-fee of Rs. 336/-. The licence was extended for a period of five years on June 6, 1981. This period expired in June 1986. As per terms and conditions of the licence, the petitioner was to hand over the vacant possession of the shop on the expiry of the said period. After the expiry of the lease agreement, the licence with regard to the shop in dispute was not renewed and, thus, the petitioner had been occupying the shop unauthorisedly since then.

(3.) MR . J.R. Mittal, learned counsel for the petitioner, has argued that the petitioner was a tenant and not licensee and, therefore, there was relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties. As such, the possession of the petitioner on the shop in question cannot be termed as unauthorised. He has further argued that the question of violation of any term and condition of the lease deed does not arise because the petitioner was a tenant. It was further argued that the order Annexure P7, by which the review application was dismissed, was a non-speaking order, Lastly. he has argued that the shop in dispute was not sublet as alleged by the Zila Parishad.