HARBHAJAN SINGH ETC v. STATE OF PUNJAB & Ors.

HELD: 1.1 There cannot be any doubt that the State legislature, that is, the Legislative Assembly of the State of Punjab is entitled to enact the Punjab Religious Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1997, despite the fact that they had enacted the East Punjab Urban Rent Restrictions Act, 1949. It is accepted and judicial notice is taken by acknowledging that the State legislature while enacting the Religious Premises Act was aware that it has enacted East Punjab Rent Act, an existing statute governing landlord and tenant relationship. However, the State legislature in its wisdom has deemed it appropriate to enact a law in respect of land and buildings belonging to “religious institutions”. The vires of the Religious Premises Act, a special enactment concerning landlord and tenant relationships, cannot be challenged on the ground that there are already two other enactments governing general landlord and tenant relationships (Transfer of Property Act and East Punjab Rent Act). The Constitution confers the power and authority on the State to enact two separate enactments on a HARBHAJAN SINGH ETC. v. STATE OF PUNJAB AND ORS. 831 similar subject if they seek to achieve different objectives and protect and preserve different sets of rights and make necessary classification to serve such varied ends. The Religious Premises Act, unlike the East Punjab Rent Act and the Public Premises Act, concerns itself with the administration of premises belonging to religious institutions and seeks to regulate their rights as landlords vis-a-vis the tenants in occupation. [Para 8] [840-B-E]

1.2 Section 3 defines “unauthorised occupation of religious premises by a person”. The expression ‘unauthorised occupation’ is of some importance. A person is deemed to be in unauthorised occupation of any religious premises if he has, before or after commencement of the Religious Premises Act, entered into possession of a land or building belonging to a religious institution otherwise than under or pursuant to any allotment, lease or grant. A person who enters into possession of the land or building belonging to or owned by a religious institution and has valid and subsisting allotment, lease or grant is clearly not an unauthorised occupant. Such allottees, lessees or persons in whose favour there is a grant, allotment or lease that entitles the person to retain possession are fully protected and cannot be evicted. In other words, primacy to the terms of allotment, lease or grant is not interfered, and is duly accorded.

The terms of the allotment, lease or grant would be binding. Valid grants, leases and allotments are not construed and treated as unauthorised occupation. It is only when the terms of the grant, lease or allotment are not adhered to or have been determined or the period of allotment, lease or grant as fixed has come to an end, that the person in occupation is treated to be in unauthorised occupation. This is a pre-condition which confers the right on the religious institution to seek eviction of a person in unauthorised occupation of the religious premises. Clause (b) states that if the allotment, lease or grant has been determined or cancelled whether before or after the commencement of the Religious Premises Act, occupation of the person would be treated as unauthorised occupation. Clause (c) states that where a person is authorised to occupy any religious premises, before or after commencement of the Religious Premises Act, has sublet the religious premises in contravention of the terms of allotment, lease or grant, or otherwise acted in contravention of the terms, express or implied, he shall be treated as an “unauthorised occupant”.

Explanation to Section 3 states that for the purpose of clause (a), which makes the term of allotment, lease or grant as a basis for determining whether a person is in authorised or unauthorised occupation, shall not be affected by the mere reason or the fact that such person has paid rent and, therefore, is deemed to have entered into possession as an allottee, lessee or guarantee. In other words, payment of rent would not be a determinative and relevant factor in deciding the issue and question of “unauthorised occupation”. The tenure of allotment, lease or the grant and terms and conditions as agreed or stated, would be the crucial and determinative criterion. [Para 9] [840-H; 841-A; 842-F-H; 843- A-D]

1.3 Under Section 4 of the Religious Premises Act, a religious institution can make an application before the Collector if it is of the opinion that any person is in unauthorised occupation of any religious premises, situated within the Collector’s jurisdiction. The Collector thereupon is required to issue notice in writing calling upon the person to show-cause why the eviction order should not be made. Sub-section (2) prescribes the requirement of a notice and sub-section (3) to Section 4 prescribes the manner in which the notice is to be served. Under Section 5, the Collector is authorised and is competent to pass an order of eviction after considering the cause, if any, shown by the person to whom notice under Section 4 has been issued and after examining the evidence that may be produced by such person. The person in occupation has to be given reasonable opportunity of being heard. The statutory requirement is that the Collector should be satisfied that the religious premises are in unauthorised occupation before he can make the order of eviction. The Collector must also record reasons. The Collector is required to pass an order within a period of 45 days from the date of receipt of the application under Section 4 and the order passed has to be affixed on the outer door or on some other conspicuous part of the religious premises. If a person fails to comply with the order of eviction within 30 days from the date of the order, the Collector, or any other officer duly authorised HARBHAJAN SINGH ETC. v. STATE OF PUNJAB AND ORS. 833 by him, can evict the person and deliver possession of the religious premises to the religious institution. He is entitled to use force as may be necessary. The tenant, if aggrieved, can file an appeal against the Collector’s order before the Commissioner. Thereafter, the tenant is entitled to also invoke the writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Articles 227 and 226 of the Constitution of India if the grievance still persists. The power of judicial review is always available and can be exercised by the High Court when required and necessary. [Paras 10, 20] [843-E-H; 844-A-B; 855-E]

1.4 The issue of whether the properties of the religious institutions for the purpose of rent control legislations can be treated as a separate category is no longer res integra as this aspect was examined in several decisions where this Court has held that separate classification of properties of religious institutions for rent legislations will pass a challenge under Article 14 of the Constitution. It has been held in Nallamilli Rami Reddi’s case that charitable or religious institutions or endownments fall into a separate category and form a class by themselves. Tenants coming under them also form a separate class. Tenants can be treated differently from others. Classification of properties of religious institutions as a separate and distinctive class of properties would not fall foul or be violative of Art. 14. [Para 11] [844-C-D; 845-D-E-H; 846-A] State of Andhra Pradesh and Others v. Nallamilli Rami Reddi and Others (2001) 7 SCC 708 : [2001] 2 Suppl. SCR 287 – relied on.

1.5 There have been number of central and state legislations wherein religious institutions with or without other charitable organisations have been treated as a separate and distinct class and accorded legal treatment concomitant to such distinctiveness within the scope of the same enactment or other enactments, Sections 11 and 115BBC, the Income Tax Act, 1961; Karnataka Rent Act, 1999 and Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act, 1997; Orissa Hindu Religious Endowments Act, 1951; Himachal Pradesh Hindu Public Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act, 1984 as amended in 2018; Uttar Pradesh Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 and Goa, Daman and Diu Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1968, among others. [Para 12] [847-C-E]

1.6 Whether a notification granting exemption to buildings belonging to charities, religious or secular institutions would violate the equal protection mandate of Article 14, the Article 14 requires that the classification must be based on rational grounds, that is, grounds germane to carrying out the policy or the purpose of the Act and by way of illustration it was stated that if such exemptions were granted in favour of all the buildings belonging to charities, religious or secular institutions, such classification would be reasonable and proper being based on intelligible differentia having nexus to the object sought to be achieved. Rent Act would unquestionably be a piece of beneficial legislation intended to remedy the two evils, that is, rack-renting extraction of exorbitant rents and unreasonable eviction orders generated by a large scale influx of population to big cities and urban areas post the Second World War creating acute shortage of accommodation in such areas.

Rent enactments overtly protect the rights of the tenants in occupation of buildings in such areas from being charged unreasonable rents and from being unreasonably evicted. Therefore, such enactments even protect tenancy after determination or end of their contractual periods by enlarging the definition of the term ‘tenant’. At the same time, the rent enactments often contain other significant provisions which indicate that the legislature itself felt that there may be areas and cases where these two evils were neither prevalent nor apprehended, and as such landlords’ freedom need not be curtailed at all. It is in this context that several enactments give wider latitude to the landlords of religious, charitable, educational and other public institutions if the possession is required for purposes of such institutions. In other words, the legislature is entitled and can make rational classification of buildings belonging to government and those belonging to religious, charitable, educational and other public institutions which are accorded different treatment on the well-founded assumption that such landlords are not expected to and would not indulge in rack-renting or unreasonable eviction.

The constitutional validity of granting exemption to buildings HARBHAJAN SINGH ETC. v. STATE OF PUNJAB AND ORS. 835 belonging to charities, religious or secular institutions, from rent control legislation, would not offend the equal protection clause of Article 14 of the Constitution as it is a reasonable classification based on intelligible differentia and also satisfies the test of nexus as such institutions not only serve public purpose but disbursement of their income is governed by the objects for which they are created. The income and activities are not for private benefit. Consequently, withdrawal of protection to the tenants of such buildings was justified. [Para 13] [848-A-H; 849- A-B] S. Kandaswamy Chettiar v. State of Tamil Nadu and Another (1985) 1 SCC 290 : [1985] 2 SCR 398 ; P.J. Irani v. State of Madras [1962] SCR 169 – relied on.

1.7 The landlords have been given certain statutory rights under the rent enactments to seek eviction and these provisions provide relief. In the absence of such rent control legislations, a landlord has the right in law to evict the tenant either on the termination of tenancy by efflux of time or other grounds after giving notice under the Transfer of Property Act. Such rights have been curtailed by the rent control legislations to give protection to tenants having regard to the genuine and dire needs but these should not be construed to destroy the rights which have been given to the landlords. [Para 16] [852-E-F] Kewal Singh v. Smt. Lajwanti (1980) 1 SCC 290 : [1980] 1 SCR 854 – relied on.

1.8 It is open to the legislature to pick out one class of landlords out of several covered under a specific provision of a rent enactment so long as they form a class by themselves and the legislature was free to provide benefit of a special procedure to them in the matter of eviction against the tenants as long as the legislation had the object to achieve and a special procedure has reasonable nexus to the object to be achieved. [Para 17] [853-F-G] Ravi Dutt Sharma v. Ratan Lal Bhargava (1984) 2 SCC 75 : [1984] 2 SCR 614 - relied on.

1.9 What has been said about the Public Premises Act that being a later enactment it would prevail over the provisions of the Rent Control Act in respect of public premises, would be equally applicable to the legislations made by the State legislature of the State of Punjab in respect of the two enactments under consideration, that is, the East Punjab Rent Act and the Religious Premises Act. No doubt, in Ashoka Marketing Ltd. Case it has been observed that the underlying reason for exclusion of property belonging to the government from the ambit of the Rent Control Act is that the government while dealing with the citizens in respect of property belonging to it would not act as a private landlord but would act in public interest, albeit this reasoning would equally apply to “religious institutions” as defined. The religious institutions are meant to carry out public purpose and the legislature can proceed accordingly that the religious institutions would act in public interest for which they were established. [Paras 18, 19] [855-A-C] Ashoka Marketing Ltd. And Another v. Punjab National Bank and Others (1990) 4 SCC 406 : [1990] 3 SCR 649 – followed.