SURYA KANT, J. - (1.) CHALLENGE to a notification dated November 7, 2002 issued by the Administrator, Union Territory of Chandigarh in purported exercise of the powers conferred upon him by Section 3 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the Rent Act) read with East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act (Extension to Chandigarh) Act, 1974 (hereinafter referred to as the 1974 Act) whereby it has been directed that the provisions of the aforesaid Rent Act shall not apply to the "Buildings and Rented Lands" whose monthly rent exceeds Rs. 1,500/-, has given rise to these bunch of writ petitions (Civil Writ Petition Nos. 20221 and 20232 of 2003, 1829, 1978 to 2065, 2689, 3902, 7360, 7836, 9855 and 11029 to 11034 of 2004) instituted by various tenants of residential, scheduled and/or commercial buildings located in the U.T. of Chandigarh, out of which CWP No. 20221 of 2003 has been dubbed as Public Interest Litigation also. Since the facts and questions of law involved in these writ petitions are common, we propose to decide them by this common judgment.
(2.) FOR the sake of brevity, the facts are being taken from Civil Writ Petition No. 20221 of 2003. Relying upon the "Statement of Objects and Reasons" embodied in the Rent Act, the petitioners have averred that the legislature of erstwhile State of Punjab wanted to enact a law to restrict the "increase of rents" of certain premises situated within the limits of urban areas and protection of tenants against mala fide attempts of their landlords" to procure their eviction. Due to this precise reason, the preamble of the said Act is to the following effect :- "An Act to restrict the increase of rent of certain premises situated within the limits of urban areas and the eviction of tenants therefrom." After the partition of the country on August 14, 1947, the partitioned State of East Punjab had no capital of its own, therefore, it was decided to develop a new city as the State headquarter and keeping that object in mind, the Capital of Punjab (Development and Regulation) Act, 1952 was enacted. Pursuant thereto the first planned city of the country, namely, Chandigarh came to be established which also became the Capital of East State of Punjab. However, with the re-organisation of the State of Punjab in the year 1966, Chandigarh acquired the status of a Union Territory though it continued to be the Capital of both the States, namely, Punjab and Haryana. It may, however, be noted that Chandigarh was not declared as an "urban area" for the purposes of the Rent Act. It was in the year 1972 that the Central Government decided to extend operation of the Rent Act to the Union Territory of Chandigarh and consequently a notification dated October 13, 1972 was published in the Gazette of India on November 14, 1972, whereby the area comprising in the Union Territory of Chandigarh was declared to be an "urban area" under Section 2(j) of the Rent Act, by virtue of which the Rent Act became applicable in the Union Territory of Chandigarh with effect from November 4, 1972. The aforementioned notification, however, came to be challenged. A Full Bench of this Court in the case of Harkishan Singh v. Union of India, 1975 PLR 163 held that the Rent Act was applicable within the territory of Punjab State, therefore, it could not be extended to the Union Territory of Chandigarh through a notification of the Central Government and hence quashed the notification. The Court, however, expressed the view that the Rent Act could be enforced in Chandigarh through an Act of Parliament. It was thereafter the vide Act No. 54 of 1974, the Parliament passed East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction (Extension of Chandigarh) Act, 1974 thereby extending the Rent Act to the Union Territory of Chandigarh with retrospective effect from November 4, 1972.
(3.) IN terms of Section 4 of the 1974 Act, the Parliament gave overriding effect to the provisions of the Rent Act in relation to Chandigarh irrespective of any judgment, decree or order passed by any Court, coupled with the fact that it was introduced retrospectively. It appears that Parliament intended to protect the tenants of Chandigarh so that the provisions of Transfer of Property Act under which a landlord could seek possession of the rented premises after issuing a notice of termination of tenancy, were not available to him. The 1974 Act was, however, slightly modified by the Parliament in the year 1982 whereby the word "East" was omitted from the title of the Act and the definition of "non-residential buildings" was also substituted.;