JUDGMENT

GUPTA, J.:— Respondent Kalu Ram was a pavement vendor in Connaught Place, New Delhi. In 1950 the appellant, New Delhi Municipal Committee, provided a number of displaced persons with small prefabricated stalls to enable them to do their business. Kalu Ram who was also a displaced person was allotted one such stall on Irwin Road. Rupees thirty was the licence fee payable per month by the allottees 1638 of these stalls. Later, the allottees, including the respondent, applied to the Rent Controller for reducing the rent. It is not necessary to refer to the various proceedings arising from these applications for fixation of standard rent which were ultimately dismissed by the Circuit Bench of the Punjab High Court at Delhi as not maintainable. In the meantime many of the allottees fell in arrears in paying the licence fees. So far as the respondent is concerned, the appellant took no steps to recover the dues till December 1960 when it demanded the entire amount in arrears from May 1950 to April 1957. The respondent not having paid, the appellant asked the Estate Officer, appointed under Section 3 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1958 to take st