HC notes ‘egregious misuse’ of Delhi Rent Control Act, says ‘well-off tenants…unjustly occupy premises paying pittance for rent’

The petitioners had sought eviction of the premises on the ground that they run two restaurants in London and bona fide require the subject premises for expanding the business in India.

The ARC, while ruling against the petitioners, had recorded that they are settled-in and are running their businesses in London and Dubai, and did not require the premises for their “subsistence or survival”; and therefore, their bona fide requirement did not amount to being an “actual need”. The ARC had also reasoned that the premises were too small to run a sit-in restaurant from.

Justice Anup Bhambhani, setting aside the ARC’s orders, recorded that “the financial well-being of a landlord, or the financial ill-health of a tenant, are not relevant considerations while deciding an eviction petition under section 14(1)(e) of the DRC Act”.

The court further recorded that the ARC’s view that the petitioners’ need is not bona fide “is wholly uncalled for and illegal”.

“…whether they are able to run a full-fledged, sit-down restaurant or a smaller food take-away vend is entirely the petitioners’ prerogative; and the bona-fides of their requirement cannot be discounted based merely on the learned ARC’s assessment of whether a food business can be run from the subject premises. This view taken by the learned ARC is flawed…,” Justice Bhambhani observed.

Allowing the petitioners to evict the tenants, Justice Bhambhani noted, “This court is compelled to record that while manning the Rent Control Roster, it has found… cases abound where very well-off tenants enjoying financial prosperity persist in unjustly occupying premises for decades on-end, paying pittance for rent, while in the process, their landlords are forced into impecunious and desperate circumstances, resulting from egregious misuse of an anachronistic piece of legislation, namely the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958.”