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2024 Supreme(Online)(DEL) 3271
HIGH COURT OF DELHI
HON'BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE, A, C, Tushar Rao Gedela, JJ
SANJAY KUMAR & ORS. – Appellant
Versus
UNION OF INDIA THROUGH ITS SECRETARY & ORS. – Respondent
LPA-591/2024
The court established that a license does not confer property rights, and upon expiration, no interest passes to heirs, rendering unauthorized occupants as rank trespassers.
Headnote:(A) Letters Patent Act, 1866 - Appeal against dismissal of writ petition - Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971 - Appellants claimed lawful occupancy of hutments controlled by Ministry of Defence; eviction notices issued without proper authority - Court found appellants as unauthorized occupants and rank trespassers, lacking legal rights to the premises. (Paras 1-19)
(B) License and Trespass - License does not confer property rights; upon expiration, no interest passes to heirs - Appellants failed to demonstrate lawful induction into premises, thus deemed trespassers. (Paras 12-14)
(C) Authority to Evict - Action taken by Land and Development Office deemed lawful; eviction notices valid as per established ownership of land. (Paras 15-18)
Facts of the case:
Appellants claimed to be lawful occupants of Khyber Pass Hostel hutments, asserting historical occupancy and payment of rent until 2001. Respondents issued eviction notices citing unauthorized occupation.
Findings of Court:
Appellants were found to be unauthorized occupants and rank trespassers, with no legal claim to the premises.
Issues: Whether the appellants had lawful rights to occupy the hutments and if the eviction notices were valid.
Ratio Decidendi: The court ruled that the appellants, as descendants of former licensees, had no continuing rights post-expiration of the license, thus their occupation was unauthorized.
Result: Appeal dismissed.
TUSHAR RAO GEDELA, J. 1. The present appeal has been preferred under Clause X of the Letters Patent Act , 1866 assailing the judgment dated 9th July, 2024 passed by the learned Single Judge of this Court dismissing the W.P.(C) 3307/2024 titled “Sanjay Kumar & Ors vs. Union of India & Ors.” filed by the appellants.
2. The facts germane to the present appeal, shorn of unnecessary details and culled out from the appeal, are as under:
- a) The appellants claim to be the lawful occupants of Khyber Pass Hostel Hutments/ servant quarters. The appellant nos. 5 & 7 are allottees, who claim to have been lawfully inducted and the other appellants are permissive occupants for many decades. The appellants also state that the rent was also paid by the appellant nos.
5 & 7 till 2001, and thereafter no one collected any rent from them.
b) It is the case of the appellants that the area in question, where the appellants are residing is controlled by respondent no. 2/Ministry of Defence. A demolition notice dated 1st March, 2024, was pasted on the wall of Khyber Pass Hostel directing the appellants to vacate the hutments and remove illegal constructions from their lands before 4th March, 2023. Though, there were 200 servant quarters/ hutments, however, due to extreme urgency and constraint of time, the present appellants had filed the underlying writ petition before the learned Single Judge. The demolition notice dated 1st March, 2024 was a general notice without specifying the name and address of the occupants and the area of demolition etc.
c) Since the respondents had requisitioned Police force for the purpose of carrying out the demolition, the appellants filed the writ petition bearing W.P.(C) No. 3307/2024 whereby the learned Single Judge passed an interim order dated 3rd March, 2024, restraining the impending demolitions. However, by the impugned judgement, the learned Single Judge had dismissed the petition. Hence the present appeal.
CONTENTIONS OF THE APPELLANTS:-
3. Mr. Rajiv Khosla, learned counsel appearing for the appellants submitted that the demolitions which have been carried out after the notices were pasted are wholly illegal, unjust and unconstitutional. He submitted that the notices which were issued and the subsequent action of demolition were carried out by an agency which was neither the land owning agency nor an authority which had statutory duty in respect of building regulations.
As such, the whole action of issuance of eviction notice coupled with the demolition action is not only arbitrary but wholly unconstitutional.
According to learned counsel, the appellants are entitled to restitution of their plots.
4. Learned counsel vehemently argued that the subject lands were under the occupation of the Ministry of Defence (hereinafter referred to as “the MoD”) since time immemorial and, if at all, it could be only the said Ministry of Defence which could have some authority to issue any such notices. In any case, he submitted that even if such notices were issued by the MoD, no action for demolition could still have been carried out without hearing the appellants. By referring to various licence fee bills from the year 1952 till the year 2001, he submitted that the grandfathers and predecessors-in-interest of the appellants were licence holders of the said hutments and as such their legal heirs could not have been forcibly thrown out of the said hutments and that too without as much as a hearing. He strenuously contends that such licencees and their legal heirs could not be termed rank trespassers/encroachers and deserved hearing as per the provisions of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act , 1971 (hereinafter referred to as “the PP Act”).
5. Learned counsel drew our attention to the minutes of the Review Meeting of the officials of the MoD and Land and Development Office (hereinafter referred to as “L&DO” ) dated 13 th March, 2024. According to him, clause (b) sub-para (i) and (ii) of para 3 of the
