M/S CHURIA RAM RAMESH KUMAR Vs. THE ADVISER TO THE ADMINISTRATOR, UNION TERRITORY CHANDIGARH & OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The applicant/respondents are allowed to place on record the additional affidavit on behalf of respondents No. 1 to 3.

(2.) The conversion order itself appears to have been passed on a direction from the Chief Administrator in an appeal filed by Mange Ram Aggarwal to the Administrator, where he was directed to approach the Estate Officer for seeking such conversion. Evidently, he had not paid the amount determined by the Estate Officer; instead, he had filed the revision to the Administrator in petition No. 69 of 1981. This petition was dismissed on 18.7.1988 vide Annexure P-l. When there had been no compliance with the direction and when the revision also stood dismissed, a notice was given under Section 4(1) of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971, requiring the transferee Mange Ram as well as the petitioner, who was tenant holding the possession of the property, to deliver possession of the property on the ground that the property had been ordered to be resumed vide order dated 16.11.1976, by the Asstt. Estate Officer, exercising the powers of Estate Officer, Chandigarh.

(3.) Against this notice, revision had been filed by the petitioner seeking permission to pay the amount which was directed to be paid by his landlord. Copy of the revision petition filed before this Court shows that the petitioner was making an offer to' pay Rs. 48060/- for getting the change of the trade for the use of the site in dispute as a shop instead of a Godown. This revision petition was dismissed on 25.10.1989 refusing the offer of the petitioner and holding that the order of resumption had become final. The order also cited the judgment referring the Full Bench judgment in the case of Brij Mohan v. The Chief Administrator, Union Territory, Chandigarh and others, 1980 82 PunLR 621 that created the right to the tenant to be heard before order of resumption was made but the remedy of the tenant, it was pointed, was by way of filing an appeal before the Chief Administrator and that the tenant would be precluded from approaching the Advisor directly by way of revision petition. It could be noticed that the attempt of Administration was to quibble with procedural rigmarole and was not addressing the issue of what was the exigent. If allottee' conversion was possible on payment of conversion charges and when the tenant was making the offer, the tenant could not have been fended off by saying that he could not approach the Adviser to the Administrator by an offer of payment directly but he could have only preferred the appeal against the original order of resumption. The issue now would be whether the Administration could be .allowed to take this as constituting any legal bar to secure the relief which would otherwise be possible.