- (1.) The plaintiff in the earlier suit has, by operation of law, come to be entitled to the rights of Burmah Shell Oil Storage and Distribution Company of India Ltd. CS No. 281 of 2005 was filed against the first defendant company and the person who was seemingly in control thereof for a declaration that the plaintiff as lessee of premises no. 14A, R.N. Mukherjee Road, Calcutta 700001, was entitled to run and administer its retail outlet thereat and a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from encroaching on the land or interfering with the plaintiff and its agents carrying on business thereat. On an application by it, the third defendant was added as a party to the suit since it claimed to be the lessor in respect of the suit premises. Such added defendant in the earlier suit is the plaintiff in the subsequent suit where the plaintiff in the earlier suit is the only defendant.
(2.) Burmah Shell obtained a lease of the premises for a period of 10 years in the year 1957. Under a fresh agreement of April 30, 1968 Burmah Shell was granted a lease of the land measuring about four cottah with effect from October 1, 1967 for a period of 21 years. The document records, inter alia, that the lessee would use the premises as a depot for storage and sale of Petroleum products, Motor Accessories etc and for all such purposes the lessee shall be of liberty to make excavations therein for tanks for the purpose of storage of Petroleum and have right to lawfully erect thereon any building, pumping plant and accessories as may be requisite Clause 9 of the deed records that upon the breach of any of the covenants or conditions by the Lessee it shall be lawful for the Lessor to treat this demise as if an end and to determine the demise and to re-enter the demised premises
(3.) It appears to be the fairly admitted position that Burmah Shell constructed a sales room at the premises and appointed the first defendant in the earlier suit as a dealer thereat. The assets of Burmah Shell in India were taken over by the government of India pursuant to an Act of 1976 and the rights subsequently vested in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL). Sometime in the 1980s, the plaintiff in the later suit, Atindra Private Limited (Atindra), came to acquire the premises from the erstwhile owners and BPCL appears to have accepted Atindra as its landlord.;