- (1.) THE petitioners are tenants of a premises which was owned by the Life Insurance Corporation. The tenancy of the petitioners was terminated by a notice dated 5. 7. 1978. The respondent Life Insurance corporation instituted proceedings under the Public Premises ( Eviction of unauthorised Occupants) Act. 1971 for short the "p. P. Act" treating the petitioners as unauthorised occupants. An order was passed by the Estate Officer in the year 1982 for the eviction of the petitioners. Against that order the petitioners preferred two appeals. The Appellate Authority by its order dated 13. 11. 1984 allowed the appeals and remanded the matter to the Estate officer to decide the same afresh in the light of observations made in that order. Against this order of the Appellate Authority the respondent Life Insurance corporation filed writ petition No. 1868 of 1985. The writ petition was allowed by this Court on 26. 7. 2002 and the case was sent back to the Appellate authority for decision afresh. In consequence of the remand order the matter was again heard by the Appellate Authority and the appeals filed by the petitioners were dismissed by the impugned order dated 3. 11. 2007.
(2.) COUNTER and rejoinder affidavits have been exchanged. Counsel for the parties' agree that the writ petition may be disposed of finally at this stage. The petition is therefore being disposed of finally. Even before the present bout of litigation under the P. P. Act the respondents had sought the eviction of the petitioner under the Rent Control Act 1947 but the respondents were unsuccessful in those proceedings. During the pendency of this long bout of litigation the central Government issued certain guidelines on 8. 6. 2002 relating to eviction proceedings under the P. P. Act. The said guidelines are quoted as follows: "2. To prevent arbitrary use of powers to evict genuine tenants from public premises and to limit the use of powers by the Estate officers appointed under section 3 of the PP (E) Act. 1971, it has been decided by the government to lay down the following guidelines; (i) The provisions of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised occupants) Act. 1971 (PP (E) Act, 1971) should be used primarily to evict totally unauthorised occupants of the premises of public authorities or sub-letees, or employees who have ceased to be in their service and thus ineligible for occupation of the premises. (ii) The provisions of the P. P. (E)Act, 1971 should not be resorted to either with a commercial motive or to secure vacant possession of the premises in order to accommodate their own employees, where the premises were in occupation of the original tenants to whom the premises were let either by the public authorities or the persons from whom the premises were acquired. (iii) A person in occupation of any premises should not be treated or declared to be an unauthorised occupant merely on service of notice of termination of tenancy, but the fact of unauthorised occupation shall be decided by following the due procedure of law. Further, the contractual agreement shall not be wound or by taking advantage of the provisions of the P. P. (E)Act, 1971. At the same time, it will be open to the public authority to secure periodic revision of rent in terms of the provisions of the Rent Control Act in each State or to move under genuine grounds under the Rent Control Act for resuming possession. In other words the public authorities would have rights similar to private landlords under the Rent Control Act in dealing with genuine legal tenants. (iv) It is necessary to give no room for allegations that evictions were selectively resorted to for the purpose of securing an unwarranted increase in rent, or that a change in tenancy was permitted in order to benefit particular individuals or institutions. In order to avoid such imputations or abuse of discretionary powers, the release of premises or change or her tenancy should be decided at the level of Board of Directors of Public Sector Undertakings. (v) All the Public Undertakings should immediately review all pending cases before the Estate officer or Courts with reference to these guidelines, and withdraw eviction proceedings against genuine tenants on grounds otherwise than as provided under these guidelines. The provisions under the P. P. (E) Act. 1971 should be used henceforth only in accordance with these guidelines. These orders take immediate effect. "
(3.) SRI M. K. Gupta Counsel for the petitioners has made various submissions to challenge the order passed by the Appellate Authority. He submits that the Life Insurance Corporation is a public sector organization. It is a statutory body and is supposed to act fairly in all its conduct including that in proceedings for eviction of the tenants. He submits that originally the building owned by public sector authorities were covered under the provisions of the rent Control Act and although subsequently they were exempted by amedment in the Act but that exemption does not give licence to these public sector organisations to evict lawful tenants in an arbitrary manner. He placed reliance upon a large number of authorities. These are-M/s. Dwarkadas Marfatia and Sons v. Board of Trustees, AIR 1989 SC 1642. The Apex Court dealt with the effect of the provisions of exemption of buildings owned by public sector corporations from the purview of the rent control legislation. The Apex Court said: "being a public body even in respect of dealing with its tenant, it must act in public interest, and an infraction of that duty is amenable to examination either in civil suitor in writ jurisdiction". In Jamshed Hormusji Wadia v. Board of Trustees, Port of Mumbai and another, 2004 3 SCC 214, reliance was placed upon M/s Dwardadas Marfatia's case and it was observed that while enacting the rent control legislations, the Government seeks to achieve the object of protecting the tenants and preventing the rent from being increased and people from being ejected unreasonably; then it cannot be assumed that the very Government would itself be indulging in those very activities which it was proposing to prevent by enacting such laws. The underlying assumption behind granting exemption from the operation of the rent control legislations was that the Government would not increase rents and would not eject tenants unless it was necessary to do so in public interest and a particular building was required for the public purpose. " In Bharat Petrolium corporation Ltd. v. Maddula Ratnawalli, 2007 6 SCC 81, it was held that every State action must be governed by reasonableness, fairness and non arbitrariness which are the hallmarks of such action and that reasonableness of action is required on the part of the State even where it is acting as a landlord and tenant and in contractual matters. On the strength of these authorities, it is submitted by Sri m. K. Gupta that in this case the action of the Life Insurance Corporation in taking recourse to the provisions of the Public Premises Act is arbitrary and the corporation is not justified in resorting to those provisions. It is also submitted that the guidelines which have been issued by the Corporation are statutory directions and are relatable to section 21 of the L. I. C Act, which empowers the central Government to issue directions to the L. I. C. for discharging its functions under the Act. Much emphasis was laid by Sri Gupta upon the point that when the new guidelines were framed i. e. 8. 6. 2002 the appeal was pending and the guidelines required the Board to review all pending cases and to examine them in the light of the guidelines. He submits in this case there is no material to show that the matter was placed before the Board of Directors for review even though in the appeal an application was specifically made referring to the guidelines and pointing out that it was incumbent upon the Board to review the matter in the light of the guidelines. On the other hand it was contended by Sri manish Goel learned Counsel for the Life Insurance Corporation that the guidelines are of non statutory character and are not relatable to the provisions of section 21 of the L. I. C. Act. Under the said provision so it is submitted by Sri manish Goel the guidelines can be framed only in respect of the statutory functions of the Corporation which have been enumerated in section 6 of the L. I. C. Act. The said functions no doubt include the function of acquiring, holding and disposing of properties but this clause cannot cover the matters relating to eviction of tenants.;