TMI Blog1977 (8) TMI 165X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nd executed on May 21, 1959. On or about August 27, 1959, the Government offered to sell the said Hotel to the appellants at a price of ₹ 12,00,000/-. Since the appellants did not accept the said offer the same was withdrawn and as the said period of six years had by that time expired, the Government called upon the appellants to hand over vacant possession on or before January 1, 1960. On January 1, 1960, the Estate Officer and Collector, Capital Project, Chandigarh served the appellants with a notice alleging that their occupation of the said Hotel had become unauthorised after December 31, 1959 and required them under s. 4 of the Act to show cause on or before January 11, 1960 as to why an order of eviction should not be passed against them. The appellants, in the meantime, filed the writ petition in the High Court and obtained an interim stay against any order of eviction. The appellants contended in the High Court (1) that the Act discriminated between the occupants of public premises and those of private property and also discriminated between the former inter se and, therefore, infringed their right of equality before law and equal protection under Art. 14 of the Const ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s quoted by the High Court) were that there was no provision in the Land Revenue Act or in any other Act providing for summary removal of unauthorised encroachments on or occupation of Government and Nazul properties including agricultural lands and residential buildings and sites and for recovery of rent, that the only procedure available to Government was to sue the party concerned in a civil court which was a cumbersome procedure involving delay and that therefore to keep all Government owned lands whether put to agricultural or non- agricultural use free from encroachments and unlawful possessions, it was necessary to provide a speedy machinery. The preamble of the Act declares that the Act was passed to provide for eviction of unauthorised occupants from public premises and for certain incidental matters. Section 3 of the Act provides that a person shall be deemed to be in unauthorised occupation of any public premises, where being a lessee, he has, by reason of the determination of his lease, ceased to be entitled to keep or hold such public premises. Section 4 provides that if the Collector is of opinion that any person is in unauthorised occupation of public premises and th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d she did so with the concurrence of her husband and by deed acknowledged, was held to have been impliedly repealed by the Married Women's Property Act, 1882 which authorised her in general terms to dispose of all real property as if she were a feme sole(Re. Drummond [1891] 1 Ch. 524.). But repeal by implication is not generally favoured by courts. Farwell, J. following such disinclination observed in Re. Chance (1936 Ch. 266, 27) that if it is possible, it is my duty to read the section as not to effect an implied repeal of the earlier Act . Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes, 11th Ed., p. 162 remarks : A sufficient Act ought not to be held to be repealed by implication without some strong reason. It is a reasonable presumption that the legislature did not intend to keep really contradictory enactments on the Statute Book, or, on the other hand, to effect so important a measure as the repeal of a law without expressing an intention to do so. Such an interpretation, therefore, is not to be adopted unless it be inevitable. A reasonable construction which offers an escape from it is more likely to be in consonance with the real intention. The well- settled rule of construct ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ould have force. The guarantee of equality before law and equal protection under Art. 14 means that there should be no discrimination between one person and another if as regards the subject-matter of the legislation, their position is the same. It is well-recognised, however, that the legislature has power of making special laws to attain particular objects and for that purpose it has the power of selection or classification of persons and things upon which such laws are to operate. Such classification, however, has to be based on some real distinction bearing a just and reasonable relation. The two tests laid down by this Court for a valid classification are that it must be founded on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes those who are grouped together from others and that differentia must have a rational relation to the objects to be achieved by the Act. When, therefore, an enactment is challenged on the ground of discrimination, the Court must first ascertain the object sought to be achieved by the legislature and then apply the two tests. If the tests are satisfied, the classification cannot be held to be violative of Art. 14. In Baburao Shantaram More v. The Bombay ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he Act was passed to provide for eviction of unauthorised occupants from public properties and premises, and to keep such properties free from encroachment and unlawful possession and to provide a speedier machinery for that purpose as against the lengthy proceedings under the ordinary law of eviction involving delay. The Act no doubt differentiates occupiers of public property and premises from other occupiers. Nevertheless, it is possible to say that there is an intelligible differentia between the two classes of occupiers, that they are not similarly situated in that in the case of public properties and premises the members of the public have a vital interest and are interested in seeing that such properties and premises are freed from encroachment and unauthorised occupation as speedily as possible. It is also possible to contend that such classification is justified in that it is in the interest of the public that speedy recovery of rents and speedy eviction of unauthorised occupiers is made possible through the instrumentality of a speedier procedure instead of the elaborate procedure by way of suit involving both expense and delay. On these considerations, it may be contende ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the right of equality guaranteed by Art. 14. It is well-settled that if a law were to provide for differential treatment for amongst persons similarly situated, it violates the equality clause of Art. 14. In the State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali,(1) s. 5 of the W.B. Special Courts Act, 1950 was challenged as infringing Art. 14. The majority judgment held that the procedure laid down for trial by the Special Courts varied substantially from that laid down for the trial of offences generally under the Code of Criminal Procedure and that the Act did not classify or lay down any basis for classification of cases which may be directed to be tried by the Special Courts but left it to the uncontrolled discretion of the State Government to direct cases which it liked to be tried by the Special Courts. The language of s. 5(1) vested the State with unrestricted discretion to direct any case or class of cases to be tried by the Special Courts, not a discretion to refer cases where it is of opinion that a speedier trial is necessary. The majority held that a rule of procedure laid down by law comes as much within the purview of Art. 14 as rules of substantive law and that it was necessary t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of Art. 14 had become ineffective, its distinctive characteristics having disappeared, and that the persons falling within the class defined in s. 5(1) now belonged to the same class as was dealt with by s. 34 as amended. This Court accepted the contention and held that as a result of the said amendment s. 34 as amended operated on the same field as s. 5(1) of the Investigation Act, assuming that the latter was based on a rational classification, and that therefore it became void and unenforceable as being discriminatory in character. Similarly, in Banarsi Das v. Cane Commissioner, Uttar Pradesh(A.I.R. 1963 S.C.R. 1417.), Rule 23 of the U.P. Sugar Factories Rules, 1938 was impeached on the ground that it provided two different procedures either of which could be followed by the Cane Commissioner. Raghubar Dayal, J. who gave a dissenting opinion was of the view that the rule was discriminatory and should, therefore, be struck down as contravening Art. 14. Hidayatullah, J. who spoke for the majority agreed with him on principle that if it could be said that the rule as framed, allows the Cane Commissioner to discriminate between one party and another then the rule must offend Art. 1 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he Collector to resort to one or the other and to pick and choose some of those in occupation of public properties and premises for the application of the more drastic procedure under s. 5, that section has lent itself open to the charge of discrimination and as being violative of Art. 14. In this view s. 5 must be declared to be void. In the result, the appeal is allowed. The order of the High Court is set aside and the writ petition filed by the appellants is made absolute with costs. Bachawat, J. An unauthorised occupant of public premises claims immunity from eviction under the summary procedure of the Punjab Public Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1959 (Punjab Act No. 31 of 1959), on the ground that the Act offends art. 14 of the Constitution. The State of Punjab leased the premises known as Mount View, Chandigarh to the appellant upto December 31, 1959 after which the lease was not extended. C n January 1, 1960, the Collector issued a notice under s. 4 of the Act to the appellant to show cause on or before January II, 1960, why an order of eviction from the premises should not be made against it. On January 7, 1960, the appellant filed a writ petition ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y order made by the Collector or Commissioner is final and cannot be called in question in any original suit, application or execution proceeding (s. 10). Section 11 protects action taken under the Act in good faith. Section 12 gives power to make rules. This in short is the scheme of the Act. Its provisions are similar to those of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1958, save that an appeal under the Central Act from an, order of the estate officer lies to the district judge. The High Court found that the Act does not offend arts. 14 and 19(1)(f) of the Constitution. The appellant has now abandoned' the attack based on art. 19(1)(f). Being an unauthorized occupant, it has no right of property in the premises. The High Court repelled the attack based on art. 14 on the ground that the proceeding under the Act is the exclusive remedy for the eviction of unauthorized occupants of public premises. With this reasoning we cannot agree. The Act does not create a new right of eviction. It creates an additional remedy for a right existing under the general law. It does not repeal the law giving the remedy of a suit or bar the jurisdiction of civil courts to ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Shri Manna Lal and another v. Collector of Jhalawar and others([1961] 2 S.C.R. 962.), Nav Rattanmal and others v. State of Rajasthan ([1962] 2 S.C.R. 324, 332.) , The Collector of Malabar v. Erimal Ebrahim Hajee([1957] S.C.R. 970.), Purshottam Govindji Halai v. Shree B. M. Desai, Additional Collector of Bombay and others([1955] 2 S.C.R. 887.) and Lachhman Das v. State of Punjab and others ([1963] 2 S.C.R. 353.) . If quick recovery of revenue is in the public interest, expeditious recovery of State property from which revenue is derived is a fortiori in the public interest. The impugned Act has properly devised a special machinery for the speedy recovery of premises belonging to the ,government. The class of public premises to which the benefit of the impugned Act extends includes premises belonging to the district board, .municipal committee, notified area committee and panchayat. The -classification has reasonable relation to the object of the Act and does not offend art. 14. We have upheld similar classification for the purpose of other Acts, see Baburao Shantaram More v. The Bombay Housing Board and another([1955] 1 S.C.R. 448 at 466.). The government has the option of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... her unless leave to defend is obtained. .A landlord may evict a tenant by a suit or by a summary proceeding under chapter VII of the Presidency Small Cause Courts Act. An aggrieved party may be free to choose one of several types of tribunals and modes of proceeding. He may obtain a rectification of the share register by a suit or by an application to the court taking company matters or by appealing to an administrative tribunal against the refusal of the company to register the transfer of shares. Instead of filing a suit or a proceeding before an administrative tribunal, a party may at his option obtain quick and effective relief against the government by an application in the writ jurisdiction and by adopting this mode of proceeding may deprive the government of the procedural safeguards available to it in suits and other proceedings. Likewise, the law may give the government an option of recovering its revenue and properties by a suit or by a proceeding before an administrative tribunal. The law does not violate art. 14 because it gives an. aggrieved party the free choice of remedies and proceedings for the redress of his grievances. In Arizona Copper Co. v. Hammer,( 250 US 400 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
