JUDGMENT :

T.S. Thakur, CJI.

1. Leave granted.

2. The short question that falls for determination in these appeals is whether a retired Municipal Corporation employee can also maintain an application for eviction under Chapter III-A of the Madhya Pradesh Accommodation Control Act, 1961 and, in particular, whether any such ‘retired employee’ is an employee of a ‘company owned or controlled by the State Government’ within the meaning of Section 23-J(ii) of the Act aforementioned. A Full Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Indore has by a 2:1 decision answered the said question in the negative and declared that ‘retired employees’ of Municipal Corporation will not be covered under Section 23-J (ii) of the Act to maintain an application for eviction under Chapter III-A thereof.

3. We have heard Mr. Seshtalpa Sai Bandaru, learned counsel for the appellant and Mr. S.K. Dube, learned senior counsel appearing as Amicus on behalf of the respondents. We also had the advantage of going through the judgment and order under challenge and several other decisions rendered by the High Court of Madhya Pradesh including those rendered in Ranjit Narayan Haksar v. Surendra Verma (1995 MPLJ 21) and Ghanshyam v. Subhash [ILR (2011) MP 2586].

4. In Ranjit Narayan’s case (supra) a Division Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh was examining whether Madhya Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation was a ‘company owned or controlled by the State Government’ so as to entitle any employee who retired from its service to maintain an eviction petition under Chapter III-A of the Madhya Pradesh Accommodation Control Act, 1961. Answering the question in the affirmative, the High Court held that keeping in view the objects and reasons and the scheme of the Act, especially the scheme underlying Chapter-IIIA thereof, the expression ‘company owned or controlled by the State Government or Central Government’ must be understood to include even statutory corporations like the Madhya Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation established under the State Road Corporation Act. The High Court while saying so, approved the ratio in Vipin v. Ranajitnarayan and Ors. (1986 MPRCJ Note 11) while overruling the decision in Sobhagyamal v. Prakash Pharmaceuticals, Indore (AIR 1990 MP 345).

5. In a Special Leave Petition filed against the said judgment and order, this Court by a short order affirmed the reasoning and the view taken by the High Court. This Court observed:

“We agree with the view taken by the Division Bench that the word ‘company’ in Section 23(J)(ii) would include ‘Corporation’ created under the special Statute which is owned or controlled by the Central or the State Government. Hence, the S.L.P. is dismissed.”

(Surendra Verma v. Ranjeet Narayan Haksar, 1995 JLJ 460)

6. Ghanshyam (supra) is a Single Bench decision of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh where the question which fell for consideration was whether a retired Municipal Corporation employee could maintain an application for eviction under Section 23-A(b) of the Madhya Pradesh Accommodation Control Act, 1961. The High Court answered the said question in the affirmative and dismissed the revision petition filed before it. Reliance in support was placed by the High Court upon a Division Bench decision in Ranjit Narayan Haksar (supra). The Court held that Municipal Corporation was a statutory corporation on account of its constitution under Section 7 of the Madhya Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act, 1956 and that Chapter XXXIV of the Act contains several provisions which empower the State Government to exercise control over it. Such being the case, the retired employee of the Municipal Corporation was a landlord within the meaning of Section 23-J(ii) of the Act declared the Court. The contrary decision delivered by the Single Bench of that Court in Mohan Das v. Deven Das [1994 (1) MPJR 259] was held to have been impliedly overruled by the pronouncement in Ranjit Narayan Haksar’s case (supra). A Special Leave P