ORDER
1. The petitioner seeks to assail the orders for eviction and other reliefs passed against him by the Estate Officer under the provisions of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971 and affirmed on appeal by the Chief Judge, City Civil Court and the main brunt of his attack is that the impugned orders are bad for violation of the rules of Natural Justice. It is not easy to appreciate the significance of the adjective Natural qualifying the word Justice in the expression 'Natural Justice'. I would have thought that unnatural justice is a contradiction in terms. Natural Justice is not something like the Law of Nature or Jus Naturale of the Romans, some sort of a hypothetical law of an ideal nature of the golden age. The principles that go by the name of Rules of Natural Justice are very much the principles of Justice simpliciter which any adjudicatory authority required to administer justice would have to observe, unless such observance is ruled out by express legislative enunciation or irresistible implication. These are so fundamental in all Judicial exercises that the appellation 'Natural' to these principles is somewhat irrelevant and also confusing.
2. However sombre and high-soundingthe expression Natural Justice may look or sound, its principles have got nothing to do with substantive Justice or substantive due process (to borrow an American term), but relate rather to the adjectival or procedural part of the Justice-delivery system. All the Rules of Natural Justice, by and large, appear to be amplifications of the two principles epitomised in two Latin Maxims (1) Nemo Debet Jude Essex in Propria Causa, and (2) Audi Alteram Partem, the first meaning that no one should be judge in his own cause, and the second meaning that the other party has got to be heard. The second has an affirmative mandate providing that no order, judicial, quasi-judicial, or even administrative, involving any civil consequence shall be passed without affording the party affected a reasonable opportunity of being heard and the first conveys a negative mandate providing that such hearing must not be made by one who has any personal or pecuniary interest or any bias in the matter.
3. Vivian Bose, J. in the Supreme Court decision in Sangram Singh v. Election Tribunal, : [1955]2SCR1 explained the second principle of the rules of Natural Justice thus:--
'there must be ever present to the mind the fact that our laws of procedure are grounded on a principles of natural justice which requires that men should not be condemned unheard, that decisions should not be reached behind their backs, that proceedings that affect their lives and property should not continue in their absence and that they should not be precluded from participating in them. Of course, there must be exceptions and where they are clearly defined they must be given effect to. But taken by and large and subject to that proviso, our laws of procedure should be construed, wherever that is reasonably possible, in the light of that principle.'
Venkatarama Ayyar, J. speaking for a unanimous five Judge Bench in Union of India v. T.R. Verma, : (1958)IILLJ259SC explained the second principle as hereunder:--
'Stating it broadly and without intending itto be exhaustive, it may be observed that rules of natural justice require that a party should have the opportunity of adducing all relevant evidence on which he relies, that the evidence of his opponent should be taken in his presence and that he should be given the opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses examined by that party, and that no materials should be relied on against him without his being given an opportunity of explaining them.'
In the case at hand, the impugned orders of eviction and for arrears of rent against the petitioner have been passed by the Estate Officer under the provisions of S. 5 and S. 7 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971, and have been confirmed on appeal by the Chief Judge, City Civil Court, under S. 9 of the Act. The Act is no longer open to challenge on the ground of providing a special forum and a different procedure for eviction of unauthorised occupants from 'Public Premises' as defined in the Act, in view of the seven Judge Bench decisions of the Supreme Court in Maganlal Chhagganlal, : [1975]1SCR1 . The Act and the Rules framed thereunder provide for reasonable opportunities of being heard in consonance with the principles of natural justice on which our general Laws of Procedure are by and large grounded and it has not been urged by the petitioner that he was denied or deprived of any such opportunity.
4. The main ground of attack on behalf of the petitioner against the impugned orders for eviction and arrears is that the proceedings were initiated, heard and determined by the Estate Officer, who is undisputedly an officer of and under the Life Insurance Corporation, and the very dispute being related to recovery of possession and other reliefs in respect of the premises which belong to the Corporation itself, the entire proceedings stood vitiated because of the principle of 'Bias', which the Estate Officer, as an officer of the Corporation cannot but have for and in favour of his employer, the Corporation. This contention appears to have been clearly negatived by a Delhi High Court decison of I.D. Dua, J. (later of the Supreme Court) in M. L. Joshi v.Director of Estates, : AIR1967Delhi86 and also by Tuli, J. in the decision of the Punjab & Haryana High Court in M. S. Oberoi v. Union of India, where the Delhi decision in M. L. Joshi (supra) was followed.
5. A similar contention was also raised before the seven-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court in Maganlal Chhagganlal (supra) and the contention not having been accepted by the Supreme Court (supra, at 2040-2041), this argument should not detain me any further. But in view of the importance of the question and its frequent emergence even to-day in respect of allied and cognate legislations, whereunder an officer of the Government or a Statutory Corporation is entrusted with the function of deciding disputes between the Government or the Corporation on the one hand and others on the other. I would like to add a few words of my own.
6. To vitiate a judgment or other determination, the bias of a Judge or any other authority required to act judicially or quasi-Judicially, must be of personal or pecuniary in nature. An officer of a Government or any other statutory authority does not have, or at least, cannot be presumed to have, any personal or pecuniary interest in the matters of the Government or the Corporation and the only interest that he can have or can be presumed to have, is an official interest of impersonal nature. Such impersonal official interest cannot be regarded to be of the nature of bias to vitiate his actions. I must not be taken to have ruled that an action or decision taken or arrived at by an officer of the Government or a Statutory Corporation in a dispute between the Government or the Corporation and a third party can never be vitiated by bias. If the officer concerned has manifested a hostile attitude or animosity towards the other party, that would demonstrate bias of a personal nature which would be bad enough to vitiate the proceeding. But otherwise, there can not be a strait-jacket formula of universal application to the effect that any adjucation by an officer of the Government or other statutory authority in any lis to which such authority is a party must stand vitiated because of bias.
7. The Lord Chancellor is the Chief Judicial Officer in the United Kingdom, is the President of the House of Lords Sitting as the final Court of Appeal, but is also a Cabinet Minister. But his interest in governmental matters being official only, his decision in a case, to which Government is a party, even if in favour of the Government, cannot be regarded to have been vitiated by bias. May we remind ourselves that in that American Supreme Court decision of international celebrity, Marbury v. Madison 1803 1 Cranch 137, Chief Justice Marshall, who delivered the opinion of the Court, was also the Acting Secretary of State at the relevant time and signed the commission appointing Marbury?
8. It is now settled law, as would appear from the decisions of the Supreme Court in A. K. Kraipal, : [1970]1SCR457 and in J. N. Sinha, : (1970)IILLJ284SC , that these Rules of natural justice 'can operate only in areas not covered by any law validly made. In other words, they do not supplant the law, but supplement it.' It is true that if statutory provision can be read consistently with the principles of natural justice and the importation of those principles do not affect the basic structure of the statutory provisions, the statutory provisions, whenever possible, must be so read. But otherwise, the rules of natural justice shall stand outweighed by the legislative provisions.
9. In the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971, which clearly empowers the Estate Officer, and the Estate Officer alone, to order eviction and recovery of rents, damages etc. under the provisions of Ss. 4, 5, 7 and other provisions, clearly provides in S. 3 that an officer of the statutory authority is required to be appointed as the Estate Officer and the second proviso to S. 3(a) makes it unmistakably clear that an officer of the statutory authority is to be appointed as Estate Officer 'in respect of the public premises controlled by that authority' and in respect of no other public premises.
10. In view of this clear legislativeprovision, it is not, as pointed out in a Full Bench decision of the Kerala High Court in M. Madhavan Pillai v. K. A. Balan, : AIR1979Ker120 , possible to let in or import the principle of natural justice on the ground of alleged bias and thus to override or to repeal, so to say, the statutory provision. Legislation may override rules of natural justice, but the latter cannot efface a legislation. We can, wherever possible, supplant and thus amend a statutory provision by the ruler of Natural Justice, but cannot supply make an end of the latter and make it a dead letter by super-imposing thereon the rules of Natural Justice. The provisions of the Act cannot, therefore, be challenged solely on the ground that the lis between the Government or any statutory authority and an occupant of any public premises owned or controlled by such authority is required to be decided by an officer of the Government or such statutory authority. All the officers of all Courts subordinate to this Court are nevertheless officers, of the Government and so far the Magistrates are concerned, they, unless otherwise provided by a Notification under Art. 237 of the Constitution, are also squarely under the control of the Government. But that by itself does not, as it cannot, disqualify them from deciding cases to which Government is a party on the ground of any alleged or supposed bias in favour of the Government. But as already indicated hereinbefore, nothing would prevent a judgment from being vitiated if, in a given case, any such Judge, Magistrate or other officer, has in fact manifested a personal bias in favour or against any of the parties and not merely an official but impersonal interest, which every Government officer should have in all Governmental activities. The learned counsel for the petitioner has not been able to urge that the Estate Officer in this case had demonstrated any such personal interest or bias to render his decision vulnerable on that score. The Rule, therefore, must be discharged.
11. But one word more. U/S. 4(2)(a) of the Act, the Notice to be issued by the Estate Officer must specify the grounds on which the order of eviction is proposed to be made and that is also apparent from the StatutoryForm, being Form 'A', appended to the Rules made under the Act. A Notice not specifying the ground, therefore, is bad and would vitiate the entire proceeding. As pointed by the Supreme Court in Wire Netting Stores, : (1969)3SCC415 , if such a Notice is not in strict accordance with the requirements of S. 4, that would invalidate every thing done pursuant thereto. S. 2(g) defines an 'unauthorised occupant' as one who occupies public premises 'without authority' including one whose 'authority' to occupy, whether by way of grant or any other mode of transfer, has 'expired' or 'has been determined'. The Act, however, nowhere spells out as to how or when and under what grounds any such 'authority' would determine or expire and an authorised occupant would become an unauthorised occupant liable to be evicted under the provisions of the Act.
12. Government and other public premises in which the community at large may be interested may, and really do, pass the test of reasonable classification to justify a special legislation to govern them. But when the Government, through legislation, is forbidding all landlord to evict tenants except on one or more of the grounds specified with precision in the relevant enactments, is it not expected that the Government or the statutory authorities, though not hidebound by the rigorous provisions applying to all other landlords, would at least specify in the special law enacted for their benefit, with understandable clarity, the grounds under which the authority of their tenants to occupy their premised would expire or determine? As already indicated, the relevant Act of 1971 and the Rules made thereunder do not spell out the grounds and I have my doubts as to whether the absence of such grounds would make the law to suffer from a good deal of vagueness amounting almost to something arbitrary or unreasonable. But I, however, need not decide this question and pursue it any further as the same has not been urged by the Petitioner at any stage. But I would only note that the observations of Chagla, C.J., in Rampratap Jaidayal v. Dominion of India : AIR1953Bom170 , quoted with approval by Sabyasachi Mukharji, J. (as hisLordship then was) in the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Dwarkadas Marfatia, : [1989]2SCR751 are very much pertinent on this question.
13. I would accordingly, for the reason stated hereinbefore, discharge the Rule and all interim orders, if any, passed by this Court shall automatically stand vacated. No costs.
14. Order accordingly.