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TMI Blog1961 (4) TMI 89X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the Gaiety Theatre . Venkayya was adjudicated an insolvent and the Official Assignee of Madras in whom his estate, including the leasehold interest in the suit site vested, obtained a further lease of the property from the representatives of Sir Haji Ismail Sait who had by then died, for a period of 9 years from March 1926. Thereafter the Official Assignee sold the super-structure of the theatre to one Mrs. Madan to whom he also assigned the unexpired portion of the lease. Mrs. Madan, subsequently, obtained a further lease of the property from the representatives of Sir Haji Ismail Sait's estate for a further period of 7 years from June 1935. Mrs. Madan was thus the owner of the superstructure and the lessee of the site, with a term which would expire in or about May 1942. While one T. S. PL. P. Chidambaram Chetty who is the second respondent before us obtained a conveyance of all the rights which Mrs. Madan possessed in the super- structure and in the lease for a sum of ₹ 36,000 under a registered deed dated January 4, 1937, and he ran the cinema house from then. There was litigation between the heirs of Sir Haji Ismail Sait, pending on the original side of High Cou ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... be evicted therefrom except by proceedings taken under the Act before designated officers and on stated grounds which did not include the mere expiry of the term. It is now common ground that this enactment covered the second respondent's possession of the premises now in dispute and that notwithstanding the termination of the term he was statutorily entitled to continue in possession even after the expiry of the lease on May 1, 1947. This is the result of decisions rendered in certain proceedings between the parties to which we shall immediately refer. Irani, the, reversionary lessee called upon the second respondent to surrender possession in accordance with the conditions of his lease, but the latter declined to do so relying upon the Act and the protection which it conferred upon him. Thereupon the 'present appellant-P. J. Irani- as representing the estate of his father who had by then died, filed a suit on the original side of the Madras High Court (C. S. 479 of 1947) for evicting the second respondent from the property. It may be mentioned that the suit was based upon the allegation that what had been leased to Venkayya originally was a vacant site without any bui ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... respondent thereupon made a petition to the High Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution challenging the legality and propriety of this order of exemption on the principal ground that the provision contained in s. 13 of the Act enabling the Government to exempt particular buildings from the operation of the Act, vested in them an unguided and arbitrary discretion which was unconstitutional as violative of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by Art. 14 of the Constitution. In the affidavit in support of the petition, the second respondent further averred that in the order impugned no justification has been shown for depriving the petitioner of the beneficial provisions of the Rent Control Act . Both the State of Madras whose order was impugned as well as the appellant Irani for whose benefit the order was passed were made respondents to this writ petition. The writ petition was dismissed by a learned Single-Judge of the High Court by order dated March 12, 1953, on the ground that the constitutional validity of s. 13 of the Act had already been upheld by a Division Bench of the Court in another case. The second respondent thereafter took the matter in appeal under cl. 15 of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... into a Court of appeal, put itself in the place of the Government and decided the case on the basis of what the Court itself would have done if it were the exempting authority. Learned Counsel urged that this went beyond the supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court in the exercise of its powers under Art. 226 even when dealing with a quasi-judicial order. Before dealing with these points it is necessary to mention that obviously these arguments proceed upon the basis that the power conferred by s. 13 of the Act on the State Government to exempt buildings or class of buildings from the operation of the Act is constitutionally valid. We are saying this because Mr. Viswanatha Sastri-learned Counsel for the second respondent disputed before us the correctness of the decision of the High Court dated October 23, 1953, upholding the validity of s. 13 of the Act. It is manifest therefore that the point urged by Mr. Viswanatha Sastri should first be decided before considering the points urged in support of the appeal. Learned Counsel for the appellant, however, raised an objection, to Counsel for the respondent being permitted to contest the validity of s. 13 of the Act. He pointed ou ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... not be predicated of the power to grant exemption for individual buildings because in the latter case it would be merely an arbitrary exercise of power discriminating between one building and another, or one tenant and another and which would, therefore, render the very conferment of the power invalid as in violation of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by Art. 14. The arguments addressed to us were the same as bad been urged before the learned Judges of the High Court and had been repelled by them. They pointed out that it was not correct to say that the enactment did not sufficiently disclose the policy and purpose of the Act which furnished adequate guidance for the basis of the exercise of the power of exemption. The preamble to the Act ran: Whereas it is expedient to regulate the letting of residential and non-residential buildings and to control the rents of such buildings and to prevent unreasonable eviction of tenants therefrom in the State . This meant that the legislation was enacted for achieving three purposes: (1) the regulation of letting, (2) the control of rents, and (3) the prevention of unreasonable eviction of tenants from residential and non- ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... urselves in complete agreement with the approach and conclusion of the learned Judges of the High Court to the consideration of the question of the constitutional validity of s. 13 of the Act. The meaning and scope of Art. 14 of the Constitution has been the subject of several decisions of this Court, a number of which have been considered by us in some detail in Jyoti Pershad v. Administrator of Union Territory (Writ Petition 67 etc. of 1959) in which we have pronounced judgment today. In view of this we find it unnecessary to traverse the same ground except to say that in the case before us enough guidance is afforded by the preamble and operative provisions of the Act, for the exercise of the discretionary power vested in Government so as to render the impugned section not open to attack as a denial of the equal protection of the laws. In our judgment, the provision now impugned belongs to the class numbered (v) in the analysis of the decision on Art. 14 by Das C. J. in Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Justice Tendolkar ([1959] S.C.R. 279, 300). A statute may not make a classification of- the persons or things to whom their provisions are intended to apply and leave it to the discre ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... er there is no substance in this objection. If the High Court were right in their view that the order of exemption was passed for reasons which did not fall within the purpose for which the power was conferred by s. 13 of the Act the order itself would be one discriminatory of the second respondent as violating his fundamental right to equal protection of the laws. In such an event Art. 226 would certainly be available to set aside such an order which affected the fundamental right of the petitioner before the Court. Indeed, it was on the ground that individual orders passed by Government by virtue of the power conferred upon it by s. 13 of the Act were examinable by the Court for their violating Art. 14 that the constitutionality of s. 13 was upheld and in the circumstances no objection could, therefore, be taken to a judicial review of such individual orders. Besides, even if the order did not violate Art. 14, still if the High Court were right in the view that the same was beyond the powers conferred on Government by s. 13 of the Act, we see no substance in the contention that the Court lacks power under Art. 226 to set aside an ultra vires order vitally affecting a person's ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... pose of the enactment or the principles which should have governed the exercise of the power. For instance, if the exemption had been in favour of a particular class of buildings, say those belonging to charities-religious or secular-the classification would have been apparent in the very order of exemption. Where, however, the exemption granted is not of any class of buildings which would ex facie disclose a classification, but the exemption is of a specified building owned by A or in which B is a tenant, then prima facie it would be discriminatory and when the legality of the order is challenged, its intra vires character could be sustained only by disclosing the reasons which led to the passing of the order. In the present case, when the matter was before the appellate Court the Advocate-General filed a memorandum setting out the reasons why exemption was granted in the three cases before the Court. In regard to the exemption which was the subject of controversy in writ appeal 28 of 1953 with which we are concerned, the memorandum which the Government filed ran: The Government exempted the building for the following reasons:- (1)When the High Court offered in 1940 to l ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tance. We agree with the learned Judges in the view here expressed. The mere fact that the tenant continued in possession after the termination of the tenancy is by itself no ground why he should be evicted from the premises, because it is the very policy of the Act to protect the right of tenants to continue in possession of the premises after the termination of their term because of the great difficulty of their obtaining alternative accommodation. The circumstance, therefore, of the termination of the second respondent's tenancy cannot afford a justification for Government to say that he deserved to be evicted. If the term had not expired the tenant would have been entitled to continue in possession even if the exemption were granted. Learned Counsel for the appellant urged that the High Court had failed to notice that the present case was one where there was a contest between two tenants and not between a landlord and a tenant and that they erred in approximating the position of the appellant to that of the landlord. We Bee no force in this contention, because a lessee of the reversion stands in the same position as a landlord and cannot have any higher rights, nor can ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ane to the policy and purpose of the fact, we do not consider it necessary to pursue the matter further. The further point urged regarding the learned Judges of the High Court having erroneously constituted themselves into a Court of appeal need not detain us long. The short answer to it is that the learned Judges had not done so. The submission ignores the distinction between findings on facts which the Court in proceedings under Art. 226 must, save in very exceptional cases, accept as correct and the relevance of those facts for considering whether their establishment satisfied the grounds necessary for the exercise of the power vested in Government under s. 13 of the Act. For instance in the case on hand, no fact found by the Government or stated by them as the reason or reasons which induced them to grant the exemption were even challenged before the High Court, the only contention urged by the second respondent which was accepted by the High Court, being that these facts were irrelevant for justifying the order. The appeal accordingly fails and is dismissed with costs to the contesting second respondent. SARKAR., J.-In this judgment we propose to deal only with one of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e who obtained an extension of the lease for a period of nine years from 1926 from the representatives of Sir Hajee Ismail Sait, who had died in the meantime. One Mrs. Madan purchased the lease-hold interest from the Official Assignee and she later obtained a fresh lease from the representatives of Sir Hajee Ismail Sait for a period of seven years from June 1935, expiring on May 30, 1942. This lease gave Mrs. Madan the first option of refusal in case the lessor desired to let out the land on lease after its expiry. On January 4, 1937, the second respondent purchased from Mrs. Madan the lease-hold right, including the superstructure of a cinema house which had by that time been constructed on the land by one of the previous lessees. This is the cinema house which came to be known as the Gaiety Theatre. The term of the lease was due to expire on May 30, 1942. In or about 1939, certain suits appear to have been instituted in the High Court at Madras in its Original Jurisdiction for the administration of the estate of Sir Hajee Ismail Sait. In those suits, orders had been passed appointing Receivers of that estate and the estate was thereafter being administered by the High Court. I ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d a half commencing from the expiry of the seven years for which a lease of them was going to be granted to the second respondent. The orders required the appellant's father to deposit a security of ₹ 10,000 in respect of the leases to be granted to him and this he duly deposited. All these leases were then granted by the Receivers under the orders of the Court. Apparently, the second respondent surrendered the remaining term of his lease which was to have expired on May 30, 1942. Relying on the aforesaid orders and leases and also on the second respondent's agreement to vacate the Gaiety Theatre premises on the expiry of his lease, the appellant's father constructed a showhouse on the land adjoining the Gaiety Theatre premises which came to be known as the Casino Theatre. On October 1, 1946, the Act came into force and in view of its provisions, the second respondent could not be evicted from the Gaiety Theatre premises even after the expiry of his lease. Taking advantage of the Act, the second respondent refused to vacate the premises after the expiry of his lease on April 30, 1947, which he had expressly agreed to do. On May 1, 1947, the appellant's moth ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... but broadly, we think, they referred to facts which showed that the power had been exercised legitimately. Indeed, on the facts of this case which we have set out earlier, we think that it was unnecessary for the High Court to ask the Government to state the reasons for its order. In our view, these facts themselves sufficiently show that the order was within the objects of the Act and not extraneous to s. 13. We wish to observe before we proceed further, that in considering whether the reasons given by the Government are sufficient to bring the order within the objects of the Act, the High Court had no power to act as if it were sitting in appeal over the Government's decision. A court cannot set aside an order under s. 13 on the ground that it would not itself have made the order for the reasons for which the Government had made it. All that the Court has to see is whether the power was used for any extraneous purpose, that is to say, not for achieving the object for which the power had been granted. When it is alleged that the power was used for a purpose other than achieving the object for which the power is granted, the initial onus must be on the party which alleges abuse ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... erms of the bargain to which the second respondent had freely entered. It may be that the appellant's father would not have gone in for the lease of the Casino Theatre premises and spent enormous sums of money for constructing a showhouse there if the second respondent had not given him to understand that he would leave the Gaiety Theatre premises on April 30, 1947. The fact that the second respondent spent money, if any, in improving the Gaiety Theatre premises is irrelevant. He knew that he had undertaken to vacate the premises by April 30, 1947, and that the appellant was taking steps to recover possession of these premises. We do not think that the difficulties of a tenant on eviction decide what is or is not unreasonable eviction . One of the objects of the Act as stated in the preamble is to prevent unreasonable eviction of tenants . The word unreasonable necessarily connotes a consideration of all the circumstances including the conduct of parties in order to find out what is unreasonable. It seems to us that under s. 13 it is the duty of the Government to take into consideration all the relevant circumstances of a particular case or class of cases in order to det ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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