Sawan Ram Vijay Kumar vs The Advisor to the Administrator, U.T. and Others

G.S. Singhvi, J.—These petitions have been filed for quashing the orders passed by the Assistant Estate Officer, the Chief Administrator, Chandigarh Administration and the Adviser to the Administrator, Union Territory, Chandigarh.

One of the points which is common to all the four petitions is that the revisional authority has failed to consider the points raised by the petitioners in their written submissions and, therefore, the orders passed by the revisional authority are contrary to the principles of natural justice.

After hearing the learned counsel for the parties, we are satisfied that the orders passed by the revisional authority are legally unsustainable and the same are liable to be quashed with a direction that the revision petitions filed by the petitioners be decided afresh after hearing the petitioners.

Facts:

CWP No. 511/97: The petitioner M/s. Sawan Ram Vijay Kumar is said to be the tenant in the back portion and back court-yard of S.C.F. No. 13, Sector 22-D, Chandigarh. The building belongs to the respondents No. 4 to 6. The allegation of the petitioner is that the landlords are pressurising it to vacate the building and with a view to achieve this objective they have manipulated the initiation of proceedings for resumption of the building and they succeeded in securing the order of resumption on the ground of alleged misuser. The petitioner says that the appeal and the revision petition filed by it have been dismissed by the Chief Administrator and the Adviser to the Administrator without considering the various points raised on its behalf and without assigining cogentreasons. The petitioner has made a specific allegation that its representative was given time to file written arguments by 18.12.1996 but much before that day the revisional authority dismissed the petition. According to the petitioner, the non-consideration of the points raised on its behalf before the revisional authority as also the failure of the said authority to consider the written arguments has resulted in miscarriage of justice

CWP Nos. 936, 1607 and 1763197: In all these petitions, the petitioners are the tenants of the respondent Lachhman Singh. Their grievance is that although the Adviser to the Administrator had given opportunity to their representative to file written arguments and their representative had submitted the written arguments, the revisional authority dismissed their petitions without considering the points raised in the revision petitions and the written submissions.

In the written statements filed on behalf of the respondents the averments made in the petition have been disputed. However, no affidavit has been filed by the respondents to counter the specific allegation made in the writ petitions that the Adviser to the Administrator had in fact granted opportunity to the petitioners to file the written submissions.

After hearing the learned counsel for the petitioners and Shri Ashok Aggarwal, learned counsel for the official respondents, we are convinced that the Adviser to the Administrator, Union Territory, Chandigarh, did not decide the revision petitions filed by the petitioners in a fair and proper manner. After having given opportunity to the petitioners to file written submissions by a particular date, it was the duty of the learned Adviser to have waited upto that date before disposing of the revision petitions. However, without doing so the learned Adviser to the Administrator dismissed the revision petitions much before the expiry of the time fixed for filing of the written submissions. This, in our opinion, is clearly arbitrary and unfair. We are also of the opinion that the orders passed by the Adviser to the Administrator do not satisfy the requirement of a speaking order. The revisional authority has not applied its mind to the various points raised on behalf of the petitioners in the memo of revision and the arguments made at the time of hearing. Therefore, the orders passed by the revisional authority are liable to be nullified.

Accordingly, we allow the writ petitions and quash the orders passed by the Adviser to the Administrator. We also direct the petitioners to appear before the revisional authority on 26.5.1997. Within, two months thereafter, the learned Adviser shall pass appropriate orders in accordance with law after hearing the parties.