MUMBAI: Though mathematical precision is not expected in regular rent payment, it does not mean that the State could have avoided paying it for months and years during the pendency of an eviction suit, said the Bombay High Court and upheld orders of Small Causes Court to return a flat to a landlord at a prime location in Dadar.
The HC ended a 20-year-old eviction battle by directing the State and the Mumbai police commissioner, whose designation was on the rent receipts as the tenant, to hand over vacant possession of the flat by the end of Nov.
The rent was Rs 396.75 monthly for the spacious 800 sq ft flat in Dadar.
The govt had rented the flat for decades as official accommodation for the police officers. A police officer, not the police commissioner, occupied the flat, the court was informed.
There was no sub-letting as claimed by the landlord, the late Dilipkumar Purandare, held the courts, but unpaid rent was the issue.
Justice Sandeep Marne of the HC deciding a plea filed by the State and police chief against a Nov 2023 small causes appeal court judgment, held that the Maharashtra govt was in rent arrears but “continued its negligent approach ” and didn’t use the opportunity law provides to deposit rent regularly in court when the landlord filed an eviction suit in 2004.
The govt “failed to comply with the provisions…of the Maharashtra Rent Control Act by not depositing the arrears of rent, interests, and costs of the suit within 90 days of service of suit summons nor continued depositing rent regularly in the Court,” held the HC after hearing govt lawyer A R Patil and landlord’s counsel Nusrat Shah.
The small causes court in 2016, had accepted the landlord’s plea of bona fide requirement of the flat for his expanding family and unpaid rent arrears.
The State went in appeal before the Small Causes appellate bench which in 2023 accepted the State’s contention that the landlord failed to prove ‘bona fide requirement’ but upheld the eviction order on unpaid rent arrears, prompting the State to challenge the decision before the HC. Shah argued that State did not pay rent arrears from Dec 1, 1989.
Over all ” no error can be traced in the concurrent findings recorded by the Trial and the Appellate Court” held the HC and rejected the State and CP’s plea. The State’s lawyer sought a stay. Shah opposed. The HC gave the state till Nov 30 to vacate the flat.
