Madan Lal Vs. Hmt Ltd. and ors. - Court Judgment

Excerpt:
- vinod k. sharma, j.1. this order shall dispose of cwp nos. 19869, 19873, 19876, 19880, 19884, 19891 and 19906 of 2009 titled madan lal v. hmt limited; krishan lal bihari v. hmt limited; surjit kumar v. hmt limited; amar chand dhiman v. hmt limited; vinod kumar v. hmt limited; naurang lal v. hmt limited and rajinder lal v. hmt limited, respectively, as common questions of law and fact are involved in these writ petitions.2. for the sake of brevity facts are being taken from cwp no. 19869 of 2009.3. the petitioner joined hindustan machine tools limited on 29.11.1975. he retired from service as deputy engineer on 30.9.2008.4. the manager estate exercising the powers under the public premises (eviction of unauthorised occupants) act, 1971 (for short the act) ordered the eviction of the petitioner from the premises belonging to hmt ltd. pinjore.5. a notice was issued by the estate officer calling upon the petitioner to show cause as to why he be not evicted from the public premises. the petitioner contested the notice. the estate officer framed the following issues for determination:1. whether the qtr is a public premises?2. whether the defendant is un-authorised occupant of public premises?3. whether the present petition is maintainable?4. whether the petitioner has locus standi to file the present petition?5. whether the defendant owes to petitioner's company licence fees and other charges and quantum of recovery thereof?6. the estate officer by relying upon notification no. so 692 dated 6.2.1988 published in the gazette of india para ii, section 3 subsection (ii) appearing at page no. 794-797 dated 19.3.1988 held the premises in the occupation of the petitioner to be the public premises. the estate officer further held that allotment letter placed on record as ex.b showed that the allotment of the quarter was made to the petitioner being an employee of the company and as per clause 16 of the letter of allotment the petitioner was supposed to hand over the vacant possession of the quarter to estate officer on his superannuation. but in spite of issuance of several notices including cancellation of allotment, the petitioner failed to vacate the premises. therefore, a finding was recorded that the petitioner was unauthorised occupant of the public premises. the estate officer further held that the respondents are also entitled to penal interest for unauthorised period of occupation till vacation of the quarter by the petitioner.7. appeal filled by the petitioner was also dismissed by recording the following findings:7. the appellant has appended copies of numerous letters, notifications, notices etc in support of the submission that the company has been allotting the quarters to retired employees of the company, employees of other department of the government and even to private persons and in such circumstances, it was not proper for it to evict the appellant from the quarter of the company, ignoring the fact that the former employees of the company had served it during their prime period of life. i have gone through the annexures. suffice to say that none of the annexures comes to the rescue of the appellant. it has nowhere been mentioned that an employee of the company, on his superannuation, would automatically be allotted the house in his favour. the crux of the annexures appended with the grounds of appeal is that the quarter of the company could be allotted to ex-employees, employees of other departments and even to some private individuals. but as per the terms and conditions of the allotment letter, an employee on superannuation after certain period, becomes unauthorized occupant of the premises. an employee, of course, can always take steps to get the quarter allotted afresh in his favour by the company in view of the latest policies. since, no such re-allotment of the quarter has been made in favour of the appellant, so no fault can be found with the eviction order on that ground.8. the main contention of the learned counsel for the appellant is that the manager estate did not follow the procedure, as neither opportunity was granted to the appellant to file his reply nor he was allowed to lead the evidence and thus the entire process violated the principles of natural justice and hence the eviction order was liable to be set aside. in support of his contention, the learned counsel for the appellant relied upon db authority of our own hon'ble high court cited as bira v. u.t. administration, chandigarh and anr. (1999) 2 plr 758: single bench authority of our hon'ble high court cited as harbhajan singh alias bhajan singh v. state of punjab and ors. (1991) 3 plr 681: db authorities of hon'ble supreme court of india cited as ashok kumar v. union territory, chandigarh and anr. : (1996), 1, supreme court cases 631 and p.k. ghosh, ias and anr. v. j.g. raipur : (1995) 6 scc 744: constitutional bench authority of hon'ble apex court cited as n. sri rama reddy and ors. v. shri v.v. giri : air 1971 sc 1162: full bench authority of hon'ble supreme court cited as zivauddin burhaniddin bukhari v. brijmohan ramdass mehra and ors. : air 1975 supreme court 1788: and single bench authority of our own hon'ble high court cited as smt. kamal kanta anand and ors. v. state of punjab and ors. : air 1986, punjab & haryana 104.9. on the other hand, the learned counsel for the respondents has submitted that manager estate had followed the procedure whereby he had given ample opportunity to the appellant to defend himself in the proceedings and thus the impugned order cannot be set aside in the ground of violation of principles of natural justice. in support of his contention, the learned counsel relied upon db authority of our own hon'ble high court cited as dr. raj kumar garga v. punjab state electricity board and ors. 2006 (1) hrr 570: db authorities of hon'ble supreme court of india cited as m/s crawford bayiey & co. and ors. v. union of india and ors. 2006 (2) hrr 233: new india assurance company ltd. v. nusli neville wadia and anr., 2009 (2) hrr 104: single bench authority of our hon'ble high court cited as tej kaur v. union of india and ors. 2006 (suppl.) hrr 730: k.t. corporation and anr. v. india tourism development corporation and anr. 2009 (3) rcr (civil) 489.10. i have carefully perused the authorities cited from both the sides and kept in mind the principles laid down therein at the time disposal of this appeal. perusal of record of the lower court shows that after superannuation of the appellant from the service and after expiry of period of three months, he was served with a notice by the company for handing over the vacant possession of the quarter. when he did not respond to such notice, the company filed the petition under the act seeking his ejectment from the quarter. appellant appeared before the manager estate on receipt of the notice. on his request the matter was adjourned to the next date for filing of reply. on 20.03.2009 the appellant filed his reply, requesting that he may be allowed to retain the quarter one year. so that he may settle somewhere else during period. in his statement before the authority the appellant requested for some more time to vacate the quarter as his ailing son was getting treatment from pg1, chandigarh. thus, it is no where made out from the perusal of the proceeding of the lower court that the appellant was not given proper time and opportunity to defend his case and hence the impugned order cannot be faulted on the ground that there was violation of principles of natural justice.11. as regards to the finding recorded by the manager estate on the points framed by him, no argument has been advanced by the learned counsel for the appellant. despite that i have carefully gone through the provisions of the act and other relevant documents and found that the finding recorded on the points/issues framed are based on sound reasoning and there was no reason to reverse the same.12. before parting with this judgment, i may address myself to another contention raised by learned counsel that issues were not framed in this case by manager estate and thus, the appellant had no opportunity to lead any evidence to prove his point, though surprisingly. it has been mentioned in the judgment that five issues were framed in the case. as discussed above, there was no point in controversy as the appellant has merely asked for some more time to retain the houses. as such, there was no need to frame issues. the manager estate has framed five points (issues) for the purpose of recording proper finding on the controversy. admittedly these issues were not framed during the proceeding. what i gather from the eviction order is that the authority addressed itself to those points to give the finding with proper reasoning. such part does not make the eviction order illegal.8. mr.ashok sharma nabhewala, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners challenged the impugned order on the contention that in the meeting held on 27.11.2000 at 3 pm a decision was taken to permit the employees seeking vrs to retain company's quarters after relieving and therefore, it was the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners that they could not be treated to be unauthorised occupants as they were entitled to retain the company's quarters even after being relieved. learned counsel for the petitioners sought to justify their not having deposited the security amount with one surety as per stipulation contained in ex.p.2 on the ground that the said policy was modified vide ex.p.7 vide which shri a.k. malhotra, g.m.(mtp) was authorised to approve the allotment of available houses of hmt township to vrs/ex-employees/government employees and other bona fide individuals on prevailing terms and conditions for further action by the estate officer. the contention, therefore, was that the petitioners have been discriminated in not making allotment and thus, the impugned order cannot be sustained. it was also the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners that some of the employees who have retired have not vacated the premises for the last 8-9 years and therefore, the petitioners cannot be discriminated by the respondents once the petitioners are willing to pay the rent as is being paid by the retired persons who have been allowed to retain the premises. learned counsel for the petitioners also referred to the list of persons attached as annexure p.9 who were said to be in occupation of the houses in pursuance to their allotment after retirement.9. learned counsel for the petitioners has placed reliance on the judgment of hon'ble supreme court in the case of ramana dayaram shetty v. the international airport authority of india and ors. : air 1979 sc 1628 in support of his contention that the authorities cannot discriminate between the parties. reliance of the learned counsel for the petitioners on the judgment of hon'ble supreme court in the case of ramana dayaram shetty v. the international airport authority of india and ors. (supra) is totally misconceived as it has no relevance to the facts of the case in hand or issue involved. it is settled law that one cannot invoke article 14 of the constitution to claim equality with another wrong doer.10. on consideration of the matter, 1 find no force in the contentions raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner.11. the authorities under the act have limited jurisdiction to deal with the matter falling within their jurisdiction i.e. to evict the person who is in unauthorised occupation of public premises. it is not disputed that the premises in possession of the petitioners are 'public premises' in view of the notification issued by the central government. it is also not in dispute that as per the terms of the allotment the petitioners were to vacate the premises on superannuation. it is further not in dispute that the petitioners have, in fact, superannuated and have failed to vacate the premises in terms of letter of appointment in spite of notices issued in this regard. the petitioners were unable to show any allotment to continue in possession of the public premises after superannuation to the competent authority which could entitle them to continue to be in possession so as to come out of the purview of unauthorised occupation. judgment impugned, therefore, cannot be faulted with only on the ground that there is certain notification or policy under which the petitioners are entitled to remain in occupation of the houses after superannuation. remedy with the petitioners in that case was to seek allotment in accordance with law but not to continue in occupation of public premises. orders by the estate officer and by the appellate authority, therefore, have been passed as per the provisions of the act and call for no interference by this court in exercise of writ jurisdiction.no merit.dismissed.however, the petitioners are granted one month's time to vacate the premises.