MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE, LUDHIANA, ETC Vs. LAKSHMI CHAND, ETC

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Regular Second Appeal Nos. 515 and 1034 of 1970 has been filed against the same judgment and decree dated 18th March, 1970 of the lower appellate Court and can, therefore, be disposed of together.

(2.) The Municipal Committee, Ludhiana, who are the appellants in R.S.A. No. 1034 of 1970, had built a new fruit and vegetable market near Salim Tabri at Ludhiana in or about the year 1959-60. They had formulated some conditions for the allotment of the shops in this new market for their guidance but there is nothing on record to suggest that these rules or regulations, copy Exhibit P.7 had any statutory force or that these were legally enforceable in a Court of law. The acts and orders of the Municipal Committee in allotting these shops to the eligible candidates in this business or trade could, therefore, be attacked only on the ground that they were arbitrary or whimsical or there had been some malice in the exercise of the discretion on the part of the Municipal Committee. The very first rule that the shops would be allotted to genuine workers who are actually dealing in wholesale fruit and vegetable trade and that preference would be given to those dealers who had been working in the old vegetable market at Ludhiana.

(3.) The expressions 'genuine' or 'bona fide' dealer in the business has not been defined anywhere in the conditions of allotment. This is a vague expression which can be stretched to cover a large number of cases or be circumscribed to exclude so many others. In any case, the decision of the question whether a particular candidate for a shop was or was not a genuine or a bona fide trader in the business had to be left to the honest discretion of the Municipal Committee who had built this new market. Shop No. 21 in the new Market was allotted jointly, half and half, to Avtar Singh appellant in R.S.A. No. 515 of 1970 and plaintiff-respondents, Messrs Lakshmi Chand Kishan Lal fruit merchants, in February, 1965. The receipt, Exhibit D.1, dated 3rd February, 1965, produced by Avtar Singh defendant-appellant shows that he had paid a half share of the rent of the shop for the first month to the plaintiff respondents and that this rent had been deposited with the Municipal Committee by the plaintiff-respondents. Both these joint lessees had gone into the possession of the shop in dispute though it is the plaintiff-respondents' case that Avtar Singh appellant had illegally assigned or transferred his half interest in the lease to another firm who continues to be in joint possession of the shop along with the plaintiff-respondents to the present day. This assignment or transfer of Avtar singh's interest in the lease had taken place long after the allotment of the shop and whatever remedies the landlord or the co-lessee may have under the law against Avtar Singh for this assignment or transfer, it would not in any way affect the initial allotment of the shop which had been made in February, 1965.