- (1.) Paris Bar and Restaurant is situated on the ground floor of premises No. 6A, Surendra Nath Banerjee Road Kolkata-13. It is a proprietorship business owned by Harvinder Singh, the writ petitioner. The property tax documents issued by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, annexed to the petition reveal that the owner of the premises is the Corporation and that its lessee is Murlimal Santaram & Co., the fifth respondent also of 6A, S.N. Banerjee Road, Kolkata-13. The owner of this business is one V.L. Jayakar. The writ petitioner is a sub-lessee.
(2.) Now, allegedly the lease between the Corporation and the fifth respondent /Jayakar expired by efflux of time. The Corporation has instituted a suit for eviction of the lessee and for obtaining vacant possession of the property. The suit is still pending.
(3.) The problem in this case arises in this way. The writ petitioner had a certificate of enlistment issued to him under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act, 1980. It was renewed only upto 31st March, 2013. Although it is averred in the petition that right from the time of its expiry, the petitioner made efforts to renew it, unfortunately, the records do not say so. On 26th September, 2013, he wrote a letter to the Corporation only to issue a "Demand Notice of Trade Licence for the year 2013-2014" (annexure P3 page 48 of the petition).Then, after nearly two years, on 4th August, 2015 his advocates wrote to the licence officer of the Corporation to renew the enlistment certificate. Complaining that the Corporation had wrongfully not renewed this enlistment certificate, the writ petitioner, filed a writ application in this court (W.P. No. 20636 (W) of 2015, Harvinder Singh v. KMC). On 18th May, 2016 this court disposed of it by directing the Corporation to consider renewal of his enlistment certificate by a reasoned order. The impugned order was made by the Chief Manager (Licence) on 1st August, 2016. It recorded the following: "A certificate of enlistment, issued in favour of the writ petitioner was renewed upto 2012-2013. The Corporation took the stand before the adjudicator that the head lease in favour of Murlimal Santaram and Co. had expired. It had filed a suit to recover possession of the demised premises. Furthermore, it had issued notice to the occupiers stating that it did not consider them as lawful. Since the writ petitioner was a sub-tenant, according to the Corporation, his occupation was not lawful." ;