NEW DELHI MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE Vs. KALU RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Respondent Kalu Ram was a pavement vendor in Connaught Place, New Delhi. In 1950 the appellant, New Delhi Municipal Committee, provided a number of displaced persons with small prefabricated stalls to enable them to do their business. Kalu Ram who was also a displaced person was allotted one such stall on Irwin Road. Rupees thirty was the licence fee payable per month by the allottees of these stalls. Later, the allottees, including the respondent, applied to the Rent Controller for reducing the rent. It is not necessary to refer to the various proceedings arising from these applications for fixation of standard rent which were ultimately dismissed by the Circuit Bench of the Punjab High Court at Delhi as not maintainable. In the meantime many of the allottees fell in arrears in paying the licence fees. So far as the respondent is concerned, the appellant took no steps to recover the dues till December 1960 when it demanded the entire amount in arrears from May 1950 to April 1957. The respondent not having paid, the appellant asked the Estate Officer, appointed under Section 3 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1958 to take steps to recover the amount in arrears under Section 7 of that Act. The Estate Officer, who is the second respondent herein, made an order on September 28, 1961 under Section 7 (1) of the Act asking the respondent to pay the sum overruling his objection that the claim was barred by limitation. The respondent's appeal to the Additional District Judge from the Estate Officer's order was disallowed. The respondent then filed a writ petition before the Circuit Bench of the Punjab High Court at Delhi challenging the order against him. One of the grounds of challenge was that Section 7 could not be resorted to for recovery of the sum as the claim was time barred. The High Court accepted the contention and allowed the petition. In this appeal by certificate, the appellant, New Delhi Municipal Committee, questions the correctness of the High Court's decision.

(2.) The only contention raised before us by Mr. Hardy appearing for the appellant is that the High Court was wrong in holding that the amount in question could not be recovered under Section 7 because the time for instituting a suit to recover the sum had expired. Admittedly, any suit instituted on the date when the Estate Officer made his order under Section 7 (1) would have been barred by time. Mr. Hardy argued that the Limitation Act only barred the remedy by way of suit and did not extinguish the right, and Sec. 7 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act providing a different and special mode of recovery was therefore available to recover rent in arrears beyond three years. Section 7 as it stood at the relevant time reads: