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Judgment
Bilgrami, J.—This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution for issue of a Writ of Certiorari, or any other appropriate Writ, is directed against the order of eviction of House No. 22-A of the C.I.B. quarters, situate in Khairatabad, passed by the Superintending Engineer, C.I.B. The Petitioners state that the house along with 2 other houses were allotted to Petitioner 1 and the husband of Petitioner 2 because their house situate in Mozamjahi market was acquired by the C.I.B.
The agreement was that the Petitioners will not be asked to vacate the house till they go on paying rent regularly, and when the house is sold on hire purchase system, they will be entitled to purchase it under that system. The Petitioners have been paying rent regularly and have done nothing for which the Respondents can evict them under the agreement. The grounds on which this order is challenged are:
(1) that the authority passing the order had no jurisdiction because the necessary conditions in giving notice have not been fulfilled and the acceptance of rent after issue of notice amounts to waiver;
(2) that the C.I.B. Regulations contravene Article 14 of the Constitution and any order passed thereunder or proceedings taken are therefore void;
(3) that the above Regulations are repugnant id provisions of the Transfer of Properly Act and CPC which pertain to the eviction of a tenant by a landlord and to the jurisdiction of the civil courts. These being the Central Acts will prevail over the C.I.B. Regulations;
(4) that the Petitioners being in possession of the houses for 20 years have acquired the light to purchase by hire purchase system and the order of eviction is, therefore, without jurisdiction and
(5) the City Improvement Board''s sanction under the Constitution does not exist; the Superintending Engineer, therefore, cannot validly pass any order against the Petitioners.
In the counter filed on behalf of the Respondents, they deny any stipulation to the effect, that the house will be sold by hire purchase system at any time, or that the Petitioners'' occupation of the houses as tenants will not be disturbed so long as they pay the rent regularly. They also deny the withdrawal of notice. From the notices that have been filed, it appears that the order of eviction was passed, because it was learnt by the department that Petitioner 1 does not reside in Hyderabad and that he has got a private house of his own. Both these grounds are sufficient under the rule for eviction.
We shall first of all deal with the most important point raised in this petition, viz., that the C.I.B. Regulations offend Article 14, and infringe the rights guaranteed therein. In this regard it must be borne in mind that the discrimination in order to be deemed repugnant to this Article should be arbitrary and without any rational basis, or any grounds of benefit to the State or a class of people.
The legislation which only affects certain class of people, is not thereby necessarily repugnant to this Article. It is only when the object of this discrimination is a bias shown in favour of or against a certain class of persons that the question of infringement of this Article can arise. It is sometimes necessary in the interest of the State and the people to pass laws which may affect a certain class of people only.
The circumstances may require grant of certain privileges, or imposition of certain liabilities, or conferment of certain rights, on any one particular group or class of persons, in the interests of the State and people in general. So long as the object of the legislation does not appear to be unfair and arbitrary, or inspired by favour or prejudice, it cannot offend Article 14. As was pointed out by Patanjali Sastri, C.J. in - Kathi Raning Rawat Vs. The State of Saurashtra, (A),
in fact, the word ''discrimination'' does not occur in Article 14. The expression ''discriminate against'' is used in Article 15(1) and Article 16(2), and it means, according to the Oxford Dictionary "to make an adverse distinction with regard to; to distinguish unfavourably from others". Discrimination thus involves an element of unfavourable bias and it is in that sense that the expression has to be understood in this context.
We should also like to give here certain observations of Mukherjea, J. as he was then, in the same case which occur at p. 131, because they represent a very clear and lucid exposition of the law on this matter; they are as follows.
A Legislature for the purpose of dealing with the complex problems that arise out of an infinite variety of human relation, cannot but proceed upon some sort of selection or classification of persons upon whom the legislation is to operate. The consequence of such classification would undoubtedly be to differentiate the persons belonging to that class from others, but that by itself would not make the legislation obnoxious to the equal protection clause.
Equality prescribed by the Constitution would nut; be violated if the statute operates equally on all persons who are included in the group and the classification is not arbitrary or capicious, but Pcai�s a reasonable relation to the objective which the legislation has in view.
The Legislature is given the utmost latitude in making the classification and it is only when there is a palpable abuse of power and the differences made have no rational relation to the objectives of the regulation that necessity of judicial interference arises.
The rules in the present case applied to certain class of people only, namely, those who have taken houses on rent from the C.I.B. The reason for confining of the application of this law to that particular class is, that they have been granted certain concessions and privileges not available to other citizens. These houses were built by the Government, and were let out on a small rent to certain class of persons, in view of their necessity, and financial condition.
It was necessary under these circumstances, that they should make laws or rules specially applicable to this class of tenants, only for conditions existed in this kind of tenancy which were peculiar to it. Giving, therefore, certain facilities to the department for eviction was inevitable and the basis on which classification stands obviously is fair and rational, and these regulations in our opinion cannot be impeached on the ground of repugnancy to Article 14.
The contention next in order of importance is that of repugnancy of some of the C.I.B. Rules pertaining to eviction to Section 106, T.P. Act and Section 9, Code of Civil Procedure. To attract the application of Article 254 of the Constitution, it is necessary that both the Central and the State laws should occupy the; same field and should be about identical matter.
The test of repugnancy is, that it should not be possible for both the laws to stand together, and their provisions should be incompatible in the sense that obedience to one should necessitate the contravention of the other. The State law, only when it thus impairs or detracts from, the operation of the Central law can be said to be repugnant to the Central Act, and will be void to that extent.
If both the laws can be obeyed at the same time there is no repugnancy. Rule 21, C.I.B. Regulations empowers the Superintending Engineer to get a tenant evicted without seeking eviction from the Rent Controller or the Civil Court. This cannot be said to be repugnant to Section 106, T.P. Act because that section expressly confines its application to cases where there is no "contract or local law or usage to the contrary". It cannot be said to be inconsistent either with Section 9, CPC because in that section also suits cognizance of which is either expressly or impliedly barred are exempted.
The rule about civil Court''s jurisdiction in such cases is, that if a new right is created by the Legislature under a Statute providing a tribunal for enforcement of such right, the civil Court''s jurisdiction is excluded, unless it is conferred by an express provision of that Act. On the other hand, if the right existed which was enforceable in a Civil Court prior to the Statute came in force that jurisdiction will remain unaffected unless expressly taken away under any of the provisions of the Act.
We shall now consider whether the authority concerned has acted in giving the notice to the Petitioners in excess of jurisdiction, or without it, or in flagrant disregard of the principles of natural justice. That Petitioner 1 is residing outside Hyderabad for a considerable time, and that he has a private house of his own are not disputed facts; that these circumstances are sufficient grounds for eviction under the rules is also not contested.
Whether the notice is sufficient or not, or what exactly the contract was between the parties, are not matters which can be agitated before us in this writ application. There is no irregularity or anything shown to us of the concerned authority in passing this order of eviction which affects its jurisdiction to do so.
No arguments have been addressed to us regarding the objection in the application that after the commencement of the Constitution, the C. I. B. authority has ceased and cannot lawfully function. No other point arises for decision. This petition is, therefore, dismissed.
Palnitkar, C.J.
I agree.