The assessment of damages for unauthorized property use persists despite prior communications, reaffirmed by policy provisions, with petitioners failing to establish rights for commercial utilization.

JUDGMENT

Yashwant Varma, J. (Oral)--The Court has heard Mr. N. S. Dalal, learned counsel for the petitioner No.1, Mr. Abid, learned counsel who appears for petitioner no.2 and Mr.Ram Kumar, who appears for DUSIB.

2. The challenge in the present writ petition is to an order of 18 June 2010, passed by the respondents assessing the petitioners to damages in respect of unauthorised use of the property in question. The order itself has come to be passed pursuant to the directions issued by this Court on 21 April 2010, on W.P.(C) 2646/2010. The impugned order proceeds on the basis that although the premises in question had been allotted for residential purposes, a shoe business was being carried on from the same and thereafter a guest house also came to be established therein. Taking into consideration the policy decision as adopted by the respondents on 25 October 2004, the petitioners have accordingly been held liable to pay damages as computed in the order impugned. Before proceeding to notice the rival submissions which have been advanced, it would be apposite to note the following facts.

3. As per the petitioners, the premises in question was occupied by the predecessors of the present petitioners from before Independence. It is their case that their father was a tenant of the original occupants who ultimately migrated to Pakistan as a consequence of which the property came to be declared as evacuee property and came to vest in the Custodian. According to the petitioners here, on the death of the original occupant and on or about 1962, the father of the petitioners obtained tenancy rights over a portion of the premises and while occupying the same, continued to make regular payments of rent to the Ministry of Rehabilitation. According to them, the aforesaid payments of rent thereafter continued to be made to the Slum and J.J. Department of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. On the death of the father, the petitioners here were recognised as licensees by the respondents and they continued to use the premises for selling footwear. As per their own disclosures, some time and around 1977 a portion of the premises also came to be used as a guesthouse.

4. On 18 October 1999, the respondents proceeded to issue a notice under Section 4 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971, holding that the petitioners were in unauthorised occupation of the property in question. The aforesaid notice also invoked the provisions of Section 7 (3) of that Act and called upon the petitioners to show cause why damages for the period between 01 January 1984 to 30 June 1999 and thereafter be not levied and recovered. On issuance of that notice, the petitioners are stated to have submitted their reply which has been placed on record as Annexure A-10. It is the case of the petitioners that although the Estate Officer had thereafter fixed the matter for 19 October 2000, no further orders in those proceedings were ultimately passed and they came to be dropped. The claim of the respondents of the petitioners being liable to pay damages was again revived and stands embodied in a notice which was issued on 08 November 2000. That notice called upon the petitioners to deposit a sum of Rs.17,78,280/-. Upon receipt of that notice, the petitioners submitted their replies and questioned the quantification of damages. There is material placed on the record of these proceedings in the shape of internal notings on the files of the respondents which appears to suggest that a review with respect to the issue of p