BHARTIYA HOTEL Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application under Article 226 of the Constitution to quash the ureter dated the 16th March, 1966 passed by the Estate Officer purporting to act under the provisions of the Public Premise- (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants), Act. 1958 (32 of 1958) (hereinafter referred to as the Act) holding that he had jurisdiction to take appropriate steps under that Act tor the eviction of the petitioners from plot No. 6046 in mahalla Ratan-pura of Chapra Town. The railwav authorities claimed the plot to be railway property, and hence applied to the Estate Officer appointed under the Act for taking necessary steps for the eviction of the petitioners who were alleged to be unauthorised occu-pantb of the same. The petitioners, however, objected to the jurisdiction of the Estate Officer to continue the proceeding for eviction on the ground that there was a previous proceeding before the Revenue authorities under the provisions of the Bihar Public Land Encroachment Act, 1956 (Bihar Act XV of 1956) (hereinafter referred to as the Bihar Act), which was fought by the parties concerned up to the Court of the Commissioner of the Division. All the three Revenue authorities, viz.. the S.D.O.. the appellate authority, viz., the Collector, and the revisional authority, viz., the Commissioner, held that it was not a fit case for taking action under the Bihar Land Encroachment Act, and that the appropriate course for the Railway administration was to bring a civil suit for that purpose. The S.D.O.'s order (Annexure B) shows that he was not inclined to take action under the Bihar Act for the following reasons :--

(2.) Having thus iost the case in the three Revenue Courts the Railwav administration thought it advisable to proceed under the provisions of the Act for the purpose of evicting the petitioners, and Ihe Estate Officer decided the preliminary question of jurisdiction in favour of the Railway administration.

(3.) The writ petition was admitted on the 13th April 1966. and one of the most important grounds urged in the writ petition was that the decision of the Revenue authorities in the proceedings under the Bihar Ad would operate as res iudicata in the subsequent proceeding for eviction under the provisions of the Act. But. when the writ petition became ready for hearing, Mr. Basudeva Prasad for the petitioners relied on a very recent judgment of their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Northern India Caterers (Private) Ltd. v. State of Punjab, AIR 1967 SC 1581, and urged that the provisions of the Act should be struck down as unconstitutional and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution, Special notice was issued to the Attorney General as required by the Rules, and the constitutional question was also fully argued by Mr. Lalnarayan Sinha, Ad-vocate General, on the one hand and the Counsel for the petitioners on the other.