RUGHBIR SINGH Vs. GIRDHARI LAL MANHAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application under S. 105 of the Crnstitution of Jammu & Kashmir by one Rughbir Singh who is a defendant in a suit for ejectment pending before the City Judge Jammu. The ground taken by the petitioner in this application is that he is being sought to be ejected from a shop situate at Exchange Road Jammu. According to the plaintiff non -applicant the provisions of the Houses & Shops Rent Control Act do not apply to this tenancy because the shop has been constructed in the year 1961 The contention of the petitioner in this case is that the provision in the Houses & Shops Rent Control Act which makes a discrimination as to the applicability of that Act in the case of constructions completed before or after the 1st day of January 1954. violates Art. 14 of the Constitution of India as applied to the State and hence it should be struck down. According to the petitioner he is entitled to the protection given to tenants under the Houses & Shops Rent Control Act as if the shop had been constructed before 1st Jany. 1954.

(2.) ON presentation of this petition, a notice was issued to the other side to show cause why the cause should not be transferred to this court and notice was also issued to the Advocate General. We heard the learned counsel for the parties but after hearing the arguments, we did not think it necessary to hear the Advocate General.

(3.) THE Jammu and Kashmir Houses and Shops Rent Control legislation has undergone various changes and amendments from time to time but on the relevant date i. e., the date of the institution of the suit, namely 6 -2 -64, the Act that was in force was the J and K Houses and Shops Rent Control Act No. 14 of 52. S. 3 (a) (ii) of that Act lays down that nothing in this Act shall apply to any house or shop which has been constructed on or before the 1st Jany. 1954. According to the learned counsel for the petitioner this difference in constructions completed before the 1st Jany. 54 and those constructed thereafter is discriminatory and violates the provisions of Art. 14. Therefore it should be struck down and the petitioners case should be held to be governed by the other provisions of this Act and the protections given to tenants of property completed before this date should be made available to the present petitioner. In our opinion this contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is not well -founded There is ample authority for this proposition but before citing the law on the subject we should briefly like to give our reasons for holding it so. The Houses & Shops Rent Control legislation is a welfare legislation and the object of this legislation was and is to give protection and some sort of stability of tenure to tenants, to prevent them from the capricious attempts at ejectment by landlords, to prevent the landlords from increasing rents at their sweet will, and otherwise taking recourse to illegal practices such as taking of Pagri etc. Some such legislation was brought into existence in the different states in India. A difficulty did crop up which was felt to be a genuine one The difficulty was that the cost of construction. went on increasing from time to time and people who had sufficient money to put up new constructions fought shy of investing their money in erecting buildings and shops because once such construc -tians were put up and let out to tenants, the tenants would be immune from ejectment and would pay nominal rents for very valuable property. This difficulty was exoerienced by different legislatures and various Governments. At the same time demands for increased accommodation grew and is growing from day to day. The legislature, therefore, taking everything into consideration and in order to encourage people with money to provide more residential and other accommodation to tenants exempted certain constructions which were put up after a particular date from the rigours of the Rent Control laws. Such provisions are found in almost every State, and need not be reproduced here in any detail. As an illustration of a similar provision in other States one or two instances may be cited. S. 1 -A of the UP Control of Rent and Eviction Act (Act III of 47) exempts building or part of buildings which were under erection or were constructed on or after the Ist Jany. 1951. Similary S 32 of the Andhra Pradesh Building (Lease Rent and EvictionControl Act) No. 15 of 1960 exempts any building constructed on or after the 26th August 57 from the operation of that Act. So on and so Forth. Similarly in the State of Jammu & Kashmir there was a growing demand for more accommodation by people who did not own their houses and shops ; yet the rent control orders and other legislation upto 1952 gave very great immunity to tenants from ejectment. The class of people who could construct houses and buildings and shops would not like to invest their money and .purchase a headache by letting out the property to tenants In order to meet both these demands, proper investment of money by moneyed people to build houses and shops and at the same time to provide residential and other accommodation to as many people as possible, the saving clause 3 (a) (ii) above referred to was introduced in this Act. The argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner that it discriminates between one class of tenants as against others is not well -founded. There is a rational basis for this classification as indicated above, and the learned counsel has not been able to pursuade us to hold that S. 3 (a) (ii) of the Act is in any way discriminatory. It may further be added that the best judges for determining any reasonable classification are the legislatures themselves. Courts of law should not ordinarily interfere in my classification that is deemed to be reasonable by competent legislatures. Similarly the presumption is in favour of the constitutionality of an enactment and the burden lies on the party who challenges the constitutionality of any provision of law to show that it is really against the constitution. These are very well settled principles of law and no authorities need be cited for these propositions. In latest authority AIR 1966 A. P. 51 a DB of that court held ;