HIGH COURT OF DELHI
M/S PRADEEP OIL CORPORATION – Appellant
Versus
UNION OF INDIA – Respondent
WP(C)-4694_2011
W.P.(C) No.4694/2011
Page 1 of 8
*
IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
%
+
W.P.(C) No. 4694/2011
AND
CM No. 9529/2011
CM No. 12462/2011 and
CM No. 11963/2011
M/S PRADEEP OIL CORPORATION
.....Petitioner
Through: Mr. V.K. Gupta & Mr. Jayant
Nath, Senior Advocates, with
Mr.B.C. Pandey, Advocate
versus
UNION OF INDIA
..... Respondent
Through: Mr. Chandan Kumar, Advocate
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SUNIL GAUR
1.
2.
3. Whether the Reporters of local
papers may be allowed to see
the judgment?
To be referred to Reporter or
not?
Whether the judgment should
be reported in the Digest?
No.
SUNIL GAUR, J.
1.
The relief sought in this writ petition is of quashing of
Notice dated 27.12.2010, which terminates the license of
the petitioner in the premises in question and to restrain
the respondent from dispossessing the petitioner from the
premises at 13, Rohtak Road, Shakurbasti, Delhi and to
prohibit the respondent from carrying out any demolition
therein.
2011:DHC:5649
W.P.(C) No.4694/2011
Page 2 of 8
2.
Aforesaid impugned Notice of 27.12.2010 terminates
the License Deeds dated 15.03.1975 and 03.01.1978 by
virtue of which the petitioner was maintaining depot for
storage of oil products etc. in the premises in question.
Pertinently Clause-9 of the aforesaid License Deeds permits
the respondent to terminate the license without assigning
any reason but after putting the licensee to 3 months’
notice.
3.
Challenge to the aforesaid impugned Notice of
27.12.2010 (Annexure P-6) is laid in this petition on the
ground that it is illegal, wholly arbitrary and without any
basis whatsoever, as the petitioner has not violated any
terms of the Memorandum of Agreement of 03.01.1978
(Annexure P-2), which in fact is not a License Deed but is a
Lease Deed and to assert so, petitioner places reliance
upon a decision of the Apex Court in ‘M/S Pradeep Oil
Corporation Vs. Municipal Corporation of Delhi &
Anr.’, rendered on 06.04.2011 (Annexure P-7).
4.
The grievance of the petitioner is that the respondent
without initiating ejectment proceedings, on 06.07.2011 in
most arbitrary and illegal manner had proceeded to forcibly
evict the petitioner from the premises in question and so,
the respondent ought to be restrained from dispossessing
the petitioner and to carry out any demolition in the
premises in question.
5.
To controvert the afore-noted assertion of the
petitioner, respondent in the counter affidavit had relied
upon its Joint Note of 06.07.2011 (Annexure R-10) which
discloses that the demolition at the premises in question, in
possession of the petitioner, was peacefully completed by
2011:DHC:5649
W.P.(C) No.4694/2011
Page 3 of 8
the team of the respondent in the presence of the local
police and no material of the occupant had been
confiscated. It
was
categorically maintained by
the
respondent that the impugned Notice of 27.12.2010 was
not replied to by the petitioner and the premises in
question was found to be in possession of the tenants of the
petitioner, who had peacefully handed over its vacant
possession to the respondent on 06.07.2011 and in terms
of Clause– 9 of the License Deeds, respondent was well
within its rights to terminate the License Deeds in question
and to pull down petitioner’s steel structures erected
therein, but the same have not been dismantled though the
respondent has a right to remove them at the cost and
expenses of the petitioner.
6.
While denying that the petitioner had been evicted
from the premises in question without following the due
process of law, respondent relied upon on the order of
25.11.2010 in W.P.(C) No. 8071/2008, ‘Union Of India vs.
M/S
Pradeep
Oil
Corporation’,
which
was
the
culmination of the earlier round of the litigation and in the
said order, liberty was granted to the respondent to
terminate the license of the petitioner herein, in acc