Advocates appeared :
For the Appellant : Ankur Maheshwari

JUDGMENT : – This revision petition has been filed by the applicant/tenant against the order dated 30-11-2021 passed by the Rent Controlling Authority/Sub Divisional Officer, Guna in Eviction Matter No. 1A-90(1)/2021-22 under Chapter 3-A of the Madhya Pradesh Accommodation Control Act, 1961 (hereinafter would be referred as to the ‘Act of 1961’) whereby, the application filed by the applicant under Order 7, Rule 11 of Code of Civil Procedure has been dismissed.

2. The respondent/landlord is an employee of the National Fertilizer Ltd. Vijaypur, i.e. a Government of India undertaking. He has filed an application for eviction of the rented accommodation let out to the applicant/tenant under Chapter 3-A of the Act of 1961 on the ground of bona fide requirement of the landlord and his family members. The applicant filed an application under Order 7, Rule 11 of Civil Procedure Code seeking dismissal of the eviction application on the ground that the landlord does not come in the purview of definition of the ‘landlord’ for the purpose of Chapter 3-A. This application of the tenant has been dismissed by the Rent Controlling Authority. Therefore, being aggrieved of the impugned order, this revision petition has been filed by the tenant.

3. Heard the learned counsel for the applicant/tenant and perused the material made available on record.

4. Learned counsel for the applicant/tenant submits that indisputedly, the landlord is an employee of National Fertilizer Vijaypur which is a company registered under the Company’s Act therefore, it cannot be termed as ‘State’ and the same at the most can be termed as instrumentality of the ‘State’. Thus, the landlord in the present case is not a government servant as per the definition contained in section 23-J of the Act of 1961. The impugned order is against the express provisions of law which deserves to be quashed and set-aside. He has placed reliance upon the judgment passed by this Court in the cases of Subhash Kumar Malviya vs. Shankar Lal Mohanlal Malviya, reported in 2000(3) M.P.L.J. 609 and Central Warehousing Corporation vs. Municipal Corporation Khandwa and another, reported in 1996 M.P.L.J. 73.

5. Heard. Considered.

6. The core question arises in this case for consideration is whether, an employee of the National Fertilizer Ltd. i.e. a public undertaking, can be termed as ‘government servant’ as per the definition of the ‘landlord’ provided under section 23-J of the Act of 1961 ?

7. The similar issue was considered and adjudicated upon by the Division Bench of this Court in Civil Revision No. 61 of 1991, Ranjit Narayan Haksar vs. Surendra Verma, on 7-9-1994 wherein, an employee of Madhya Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation was held to be ‘a landlord’ under section 23-J of the Act of 1961, with the following observations :

“14. From such legislative perspective, there could not be any discrimination between retired employees of Government owned or controlled companies, or corporation. Of course we are not called upon to decide if section 23-J(ii) if understood as being applicable only to companies incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 will violate Article 14 of the Constitution. Nevertheless in considering the legislative intent, regard must be had to the equality clause in the Constitution in case of an ambiguity. We sought the assistance of learned counsel in finding the possible reasons for treating retired employees of companies under the Indian Companies Act and statutory corporation differently. The only reason suggested at the bar is that the corporations are more in number and larger in size and have large number of employees and the legislature did not desire to extend the benefit of Chapter III-A to such a large number of landlords to the detriment of the tenants. This reason is not sound in view of section 23-J(i) which includes the very large number of retired Government employees in the definition of landlord. There is nothing in the language or context of section