TMI Blog1979 (8) TMI 217X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e Rent Controller under Section 21 of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958. (the Act, for short), as if the letting were of a residential accommodation. It is apparent that all these years an elitist 'residential school' is being run in the premises and that is the purpose expressly recited in all but the last lease deed of December 1975. This lease recites blandly that the lessee requires a suitable accommodation for residential purposes'. The period of the lease having expired the landlady applied for summary eviction by application for execution a novel procedure enjoyed by the landlords of this capital city which relieves them of the need even to file a suit for eviction. The tenant, whose expensive and lucrative school was about to be uprooted for want of habitation, hunted for a legal plea to resist the threat of dispossession. Technicality is the unfailing resource of an Indian litigant and the ingenious defence, among others, was set up that because the application for eviction did not mention that the letting was 'in writing' it was fatally flaw some . Better pleas which merited serious consideration were over-ruled but this little infirmity in the pleading ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... statutory scheme unless, by interpretation, it is canalised and the 'mischief rule' in Hyden's case applied. After all, for the common man, law-in-action is what the court says it is. 9. To maintain the integrity of the law the court must 'suit the action to the word, the world to the action, and so we have to fathom, from the language employed and the economic, milieu, what the meaning of Section 21 is and save it from possible exploitation by unscrupulous landlords for whom 'fair is foul, and foul is fair'. 10. Rent control legislation in Delhi, as elsewhere in the country, is broadly intended 'to provide for the control of rents and evictions and of rates of hotels and lodging houses and for the lease of vacant premises to Government, in certain areas in the Union Territory of Delhi. 11. This is understandable where the city population swells and the city accommodation stagnates, the people suffocate for space and landlords 'make hay' playing the game of 'each according to his ability to grab'. 12. Parliament has built into the Act restriction on eviction. Section 14(1) starts off : Notwithstanding anything to the contra ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ted earlier, the critical need was for residential, not non residential housing. Therefore, Section 21 confines this special remedy to letting for residential uses only. Parliament had the wholesome fear that if the section were not controlled by many conditions it might open the flood gates for wholesale circumvention of the rent control legislation by ingenious landlords exploiting the agonising need of houseless denizens. Against this back-drop, let us read Section 21 and highlight the essential conditions written into the provision : 21. Where a landlord does not require the whole or any part of any premises for a particular period, and the landlord, after obtaining the permission of the Controller in the prescribed manner, lets the whole of the premises or part thereof as resident for such period as may be agreed to in writing between the landlord and the tenant and the tenant does not, on the expiry of the said period, vacate such premises, then, notwithstanding anything contained in Section 14 or in any other law, the Controller may, on an application made to him in this behalf by the landlord within such time as may be prescribed, place the landlord in vacant possession ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... latory function on behalf of the community. The fact that a landlord and a potential tenant together apply, setting out the formal ingredients of Section 21, does not relieve the Controller from being vigilant to inquire and satisfy himself about the requisites of the landlord's non requirement for a particular period and the letting itself being as a residence . A fraud on the statute cannot be permitted especially because of the grave mischief that may be perpetrated in such event. 17. It is easy to envisage the terrible blow to the rent control law if Section 21 were freely permitted to subvert the scheme of Section 14. Every landlord will insist on a tenant going through the formal exercise of Section 21, making ideal averments in terms of that Section. The consequence will be that both the Civil Procedure Code which prescribes suits for recovery of possession and the Delhi Rent Control Act which prescribes grounds for eviction will be eclipsed by the pervasive operation of Section 21. Neither grounds for eviction nor suits for eviction will thereafter be needed, and if the landlord moves the court for a mere warrant to place the landlord, through the court process, i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... or the benefit of a section of the public, imposes a duty of a positive kind the person charged with the performance of the duty cannot by estoppel be prevented from exercising his statutory powers. A petitioner in a divorce suit cannot obtain relief simply because the respondent is estopped from denying the charges, as the court has a statutory duty to inquire into the truth of a petition. 20. It is an old maxim that estoppels are odious, although considerable inroad into this maxim has been made by modern law. Even so, a judgment obtained by fraud or collusion, even it seems a judgment of the House of Lords, may be treated as a nullity. (See Halsbury's Laws of England, Vol. 16 fourth edition para 1553). The point is that the sanction granted under Section 21, if it has been procured by fraud or collusion, cannot withstand invalidity because, otherwise, high public policy will be given as hostage to successful collusion. 21. Law that non performs stultifies the rule of law-and so it is that we stress the need for strict compliance. Or else, the sanction is non est. Collusion between the strong and the weak cannot confer validity where the mandatory prescriptions of the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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