N.D.OJHA,J. - (1.) THE petitioner, Life Insurance Corporation of India, is the owner of house No. 31, situate in premises No. 161116, Civil Lines, Kanpur. It was in the tenancy of one Shri S.N. Roy who in the month of June, 1970, expressed his intention to vacate the house in question. The petitioner made an application on June 11, 1970, to the District Magistrate inter alia saying that most of its offi­cers are in need of residential accommodation and as such it is re­quested that the above accommodation may be released in favour of the Life Insurance Corporation of India for allotment on lease and licence basis to one of its officers. It was also stated in the said ap­plication that its officers hold transferable posts on all India basis and on such transfers to Kanpur they find it difficult to get residen­tial accommodation and some of them have in fact not been able to bring their families on this account. At the moment the house was to be given to Sri S.P Pande, Assistant Secretary.
(2.) THE accommodation was actually vacated by Shri S.N. Roy but instead of releasing it in favour of "the petitioner the Rent Control and Eviction Officer in exercise of the powers delegated to him by the District Magistrate allotted it to Shri Beni Singh (since deceas­ed), respondent No. 4. on June 15, 1970. This order of the Rent Con­trol and Eviction Officer was challenged by the petitioner by insti­tuting a writ petition in this Court. During the pendency of that writ petition an intimation was received by the petitioner from the Rent Control and Eviction Officer requiring it to appear before him in connection with the aforesaid release application. Shri Beni Singh aforesaid wrote a letter to the District Magistrate on October 12, 1970, a copy of which has been attached as Annexure 9 to the writ petition. By this letter a request was made by him that in place of house No. 31, which had been allotted to him on June 15, 1970, house No. 47, of which he was an earlier allottee, may be reallotted to him. On this application the Additional District Magistrate, City passed an order on October 14, 1970. It was addressed to the Rent Control and Evic­tion Officer saying that the allotment of premises No. 31/16/116 in. favour of Beni Singh may be cancelled and premises No. 47/16/116 may be allotted to him, and premises No. 31 may be allotted to Shri Raghunath Singh, respondent No. 3. The petitioner appeared before the Rent Control and Eviction Officer in connection with the release application made by it in pur­suance of the aforesaid intimation and pressed its claim in regard to the release of the house in question. An affidavit sworn on Novem­ber 10, 1970, by S.P. Pande, Assistant Secretary in the Life Insur­ance Corporation of India, was filed before the Rent Control and Eviction Officer in which it was stated that after making of the ap­plication dated June 11, 1970, he had been provided with an accom­modation by the Life Insurance Corporation. It was, however, as­serted that the need of the Life Insurance Corporation of India for the house in question was still there inasmuch as 42 of its employees) were still waiting for allotment of accommodations to them and all of them hailes from districts outside Kanpur. The names with de­signations of these 42 employees were given in an Annexure to the said affidavit. The application for release was, however, dismissed by the Rent Control and Eviction Officer on November 16, 1970. A perusal of his order indicates that he was very much impressed by the fact that Shri S.P. Pande, to whom the accommodation in ques­tion was intended to be given, had already been provided with an­other accommodation. The Rent Control and Eviction Officer, however, did not go into the question as to whether the petitioner's need for providing accommodation to its 42 employees whose names and designations were given in the annexure to the affidavit referred to above was bona fide or not. He yet made a superficial observation based on the evidence that the plea in this behalf had been taken to defeat the allotment of the accommodation and accordingly the need of the petitioner did not appear to be genuine and bona fide. Indeed in recording this finding he did not really apply his mind at all to the facts stated in the affidavit that 42 employees of the petitioner who had been transferred to Kanpur from outside were waiting for allotment of residential accommodation to them. In view of the nature of its need setup by the petitioner these were fact that the officer who was intended to be given the house in question had in the meantime been provided with another accommodation was hardly relevant when there were other employees who were without any accommodation and were waiting for some accommodation to be given to them. The Rent Control and Eviction Officer on the same date, viz., on November 16. 1970, allotted the accommodation to res­pondent No. 3, Raghunath Singh. At this place it may be recapitu­lated that the order of allotment was passed in favour of the same person in respect of whom Additional District Magistrate (City) had already passed an order on October 14, 1970 whereby he had written to the Rent Control and Eviction Officer that the house in question may be allotted to him. It is thus apparent that it had virtually been decided earlier on October 14, 1970, itself that the house in question was to be allotted to respondent No. 3 and the actual order was passed on November 16, 1970, for the sake of compliance of the formal requirement of considering the application for release made by the petitioner on June 11, 1970.
(3.) AGAINST the order passed by the Rent Control and Eviction Offi­cer dismissing its application dated June 11, 1970, which was an ap­plication under Rule 6 of the Rules framed under the U.P. (Tempo­rary) Control of Rent and Eviction Act, 1917, the petitioner made a representation to the State Government under Section 7-F of the Act. This representation was dismissed by the State Government by its order dated February 18, 19, 1972, which was communicated to the petitioner along with a letter dated February 21, 1972, a true copy whereof has been attached as Annexure 21 to the writ petition Ag­grieved the Life Insurance Corporation of India has instituted the present writ petition with the prayer that the aforesaid orders passed by the Rent Control and Eviction Officer and the State Government may be quashed.;