Landlords file plea to reverse SC’s ‘occupy forever’ judgment

Delhi/NCR
The debate over rent control laws in Delhi is set to gather steam with both tenant and landlord lobbies becoming active in the face of the Narendra Modi government’s stress on junking outdated laws from statute books.

While a group of tenants held a dharna on October 7  at Jantar Mantar against proposed changes in the Delhi Rent Act, an association of landlords has moved the Supreme Court seeking a review of its 30-year-old judgment that granted indefinite right of succession to legal heirs of rent-control tenants of commercial properties in Delhi. The apex court may now well put its 1985 verdict under the scanner.

The National Campaign Committee for Rental Law Reform, along with a group of landlords from Karol Bagh, has filed the review petition challenging its verdict in the case of Gian Devi Anand vs Jeevan Kumar, passed on May 1, 1985. As per the review plea, the 1985 judgment “gave indefinite right of succession to the legal heirs of the rent-control tenants of commercial properties and as result tenant-traders continue to occupy the properties”.

Arguing that the SC judgment is “erroneous on the face of it”, NCCRLR has blamed the then prevailing pro-tenant atmosphere and bad wording of the law that led SC to pass the verdict. “The impugned judgment has the cumulative effect of transfer of property in favour of the tenant with neither any consent of the landlords nor any valid consideration for such transfer,” the review plea adds, pointing out prior to an amendment in 1975, there was no right to inheritance under the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958.

The petitioners argue, “The limited right of inheritance by the legal heirs of tenants should be the same in both residential and commercial premises,” their plea says.

Source:http://content.magicbricks.com/industry-news/delhi-ncr-real-estate-news/landlords-file-plea-to-reverse-scs-occupy-forever-judgment/76790.html