MUNICIPAL CORPORATION OF DELHI vs Zubeda Begum

THE appellant MCD has been directed to pay Rs. 2,000 to the respondent as compensation for not issuing certified copy of record in respect of premises No. 8, Raj Niwas Marg, Delhi in spite of respondent having affixed a Court-fees stamp of Rs. 2 on the application.

TO put briefly the facts giving rise to this appeal are that the respondent claims herself to be the owner of premises No. 8, Raj Niwas Marg and in that capacity she filed Civil Suit for perpetual injunction restraining the Union of India and other from interfering with her possession and restraining the custodian of the Evacuee Property, declaring the same as evacuee property. It is also the case of the respondent that in the month of March, 1998 the respondent came to know that the record of the said property in the appellant MCD office was being tampered with and therefore she made a written application on 24.3.1998 requesting the appellant to supply a certified copy of the property record with a duly affixed Court-fees of Rs. 2 and inspite of repeated requests the said copy was not supplied to her. The perusal of the impugned order shows that the District Forum allowed the complaint on the premises of Section 76 of the Indian Evidence Act which reads as under: "Every public officer having the custody of a public document, which any person has a right to inspect, shall give that person on demand a copy of it on payment of the legal fees thereof, together with a certificate written at the foot of such copy that it is a true copy of such document or part thereof, as the case may be, and such certificate shall be dated and subscribed by such officer with his name and his official title, and shall be sealed, whenever such officer is authorised by law to make use of a seal; and such copies so certified shall be called certified copies."

Explanation-Any officer who, by the ordinary course of official duty, is authorised to deliver such copies, shall be deemed to have the custory of such documents within the meaning of this section."

According to the District Forum the above referred provision casts obligation upon a public officer to issue copy of a public document. We are afraid the District Forum did not refer to the nature of document whether the said document was public document or the person concerned had a right to inspect the said document and also right to demand a copy of it on payment of legal fees.

ACCORDING to the appellant MCD the respondent was an encroacher of the Government property which was acquired long back by way of Award No. 12/03-04 made by the Land Acquisition Collector, Delhi and therefore, the record of the said property as demanded by the respondent was not available with them. As is apparent the property in question was not mutated in the name of the respondent nor was it assessed the appellant MCD was not under any obligation to issue certified copy of the property record, as the said property had already been acquired and the possession was taken over by the Govt. of NCT Delhi. Further the appellant was not a proper legal authority for furnishing the requisite information or the requisite document and as such should not have been held liable for any deficiency in service in terms of Section 76 of the Indian Evidence Act. In the result, the appeal is allowed, the impugned order is set aside with the liberty to the respondent to resort to any other appropriate remedy.

THE appeal is disposed of in above terms. Bank Guarantee/FDR, if any, furnished by the appellant be returned forthwith after due formalities. A copy of this order as per the statutory requirements, be forwarded to the parties free of charge and also to the concerned District Forum and thereafter the file be consigned to Record Room. Appeal disposed of.