BILLA Vs. AMRITSAR IMPROVEMENT TRUST

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS second appeal is directed against the decision of the Senior Subordinate judge, Amritsar, reversing, on appeal, the decision of the trial Court decreeing the plaintiff's suit.

(2.) SO far as the facts of the case go, there is no dispute. The plaintiff was a tenant of the Custodian, or, in other words, be was in occupation of the evacuee property and was paying rent to the Custodian. He applied for the transfer of the property to himself and the District Rent and Managing Officer, on the 15th February, 1963, agreed to transfer the property to him for a sum of Rs. 910/- But before a sale certificate could be issued to the plaintiff, the entire evacuee properly including the properly in dispute in the area known as 'katra Moti Ram, Amritsar' was purchased by private negotiations by the Amritsar Improvement Trust from the Rehabilitation department. It may be mentioned that at the time, when the scheme for this area was prepared, in the notification, Exhibit D. 3, all the evacuee property was left out from acquisition proceedings and only the non-evacuee property was acquired under Section 6 (1) of the Punjab Development of Damaged Areas Act (No. 10) of 1951 (hereinafter referred to as the Act ). The Trust, on the 4lh December, 1963, issued the notice, Exhibit p 5, to the plaintiff to hand over the vacant possession of the property in his possession. It is this notice which was challenged by the plaintiff by suit. The trial Court decreed the suit. But, on appeal, the decision of the trial Court was reversed by the learned Senior Subordinate Judge.

(3.) THE learned Senior Subordinate Judge, took the view that the acquisition by private negotiations of the property in dispute between the Trust and the rehabilitation Department amounted to an acquisition within the meaning of section 6 (1) of the Act I am unable to find any substance in this approach. By purchase from the Rehabilitation Department, the properly came to vest in the improvement Trust as an owner. The position of the plaintiff would be either a tenant of the custodian and thus by reasons of purchase as a tenant of the Truslt, or it will be that of a licensee or at worse that of a trespasser. In either event, the remedy of the Trust is to seek to evict the plaintiff in accordance with law and not have recourse to Section 6 (2) of the Act, which provision only enables the Trust to recover possession from persons, whose property has been acquired under Section 6 (1) of the Act. Section 6 (1) of the Act deals with the compulsory acquisition by the Collector. It has nothing to do so far as the ownership of the Trust otherwise than through acquisition is concerned. There is no other provision in the Act and none has been brought to my notice which confers a power on the Trust to evict trespassers, tenants or licensees from the property admittedly belonging to the Trust excepting the property acquired under Section 6 (1) of the Act. I may mention here that there are Statutes where the Authority has been given the power to evict its tenants or occupiers of its properly without recourse to a suit; for instance, Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act and the earlier Acts, that is Administration of Evacuee Property Acts and also the Public premises Eviction Act. If the intention of the legislature was that the Trust should enjoy that power, nothing could be simpler to vest it with the Trust. But that has not been done. I cannot spell out that power from section (5 (2) of the Act, which deals with a limited type of acquisition under Section 6 (1 ). In fact, Section 6 (2) of the Act is merely to give effect to the provisions of Section 6 (1) I am, therefore, clearly of the view that the lower appellate Court was in error in reversing the decision of the trial Court.