NOIDA: The district rent tribunal has ordered a tenant who refused to vacate an apartment at Great Value Sharanam in Sector 107 and not paid rent for four years to cough up a stiff fine of Rs 20 lakh and move out within a month.
Presiding over the tribunal, additional district magistrate (finance and revenue) Atul Kumar passed the order under UP Urban Premises Tenancy Regulation Act on Jan 21, warning of further legal action if the tenant fails to comply.
The flat’s owner, Manorama Devi, is an elderly widow and the tenants, Mukesh Gupta and his wife, are also senior citizens. In her complaint, Manorama claimed she rented her 19th-floor flat in Tower B of Great Value Sharanam to Gupta on May 1, 2019. A lease agreement was signed between them for 11 months at Rs 20,000 per month rent, excluding maintenance charges.
After the lease term ended on March 31, 2020, it was not renewed and Gupta allegedly refused to vacate the property. Subsequently, Manorama issued a termination notice on Dec 12, 2021, but the tenant neither vacated the flat nor paid rent. “She sent them a second notice on Feb 21, 2022, but the tenants did not reply. Ultimately, the matter was taken to the rent tribunal on Feb 19, 2024,” her advocate KK Singh said.
During the hearings, Gupta told the tribunal, set up under the ADM court, that according to the UP Tenancy Act, he paid Rs 9 lakh in cash in two instalments as advance rent for 3 years in March 2020.
However, with no formal lease agreement to support his claim, the court dismissed the argument. On Jan 21, the court finally ruled in favour of Manorama and ordered Gupta to vacate the flat and pay the penalty within 30 days.
“The fine was fixed at Rs 20 lakh to include unpaid rent calculated under tenancy laws that impose penalties of double rent for the first two months of non-payment and four times the rent thereafter,” Singh said.
According to ADM Atul Kumar, several such disputes are heard by the rent tribunal daily since the implementation of the Tenancy Act in 2021.
“Eviction orders have been issued for several more such cases, though the penalty for each case varies. This case is among the highest penalties calculated as per the Tenancy Act,” the ADM said.
