Latest news with #AnupBhambhani
Indian Express
02-07-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
HC notes ‘egregious misuse' of Delhi Rent Control Act, says ‘well-off tenants…unjustly occupy premises paying pittance for rent'
The Delhi High Court observed on Wednesday that the Delhi Rent Control (DRC) Act, 1958 sees an 'egregious misuse of an anachronistic piece of legislation' where well-off tenants 'unjustly' occupy premises paying a pittance as rent while the landlords are forced into 'impecunious and desperate circumstances'. The Delhi High Court was dealing with petitions challenging the 2013 orders by the additional rent controller (ARC) that had dismissed eviction petitions by the UK- and Dubai-based owners of a property in Sadar Bazar, ruling in favour of the tenants. 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 respectively, and that the petitioners did not require the premises for their 'subsistence or survival'; and therefore their bonafidé 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-fidés 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. On a parting note, 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 that 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.'
Indian Express
16-05-2025
- Indian Express
HC raps Delhi, UP police for ‘passing the buck', not lodging FIR into man's ‘unnatural' death
The Delhi High Court on Friday rapped the Delhi and Uttar Pradesh police for 'passing the buck' and failing to register an FIR following the death of a man under mysterious circumstances last year. It observed that the 'excuse' of an offence not having been committed within a police station's territorial jurisdiction 'is no longer available to any police station' with the Bharatiya Nyaya Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) coming in. The court was referring to Section 173 of the BNSS, which states that 'every information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence, irrespective of the area where the offence is committed, may be given orally or by electronic communication to an officer in charge of a police station'. Justice Anup Bhambhani made the observations while deciding a petition filed by the sister of the deceased. She said her brother was found dead on the night of December 3, 2024, inside a locked car with a carbon monoxide cylinder and syringes, and an ominous note in his diary. The petitioner had complained that despite filing police complaints with the Knowledge Park police station in UP and Moti Nagar police station in New Delhi, no FIR has been registered to date. The deceased man had left home in Delhi and was found dead in Greater Noida in UP. The court observed that the circumstances 'painted a ghastly picture of what was clearly not a natural death'. Justice Bhambhani observed, 'After several hearings in the matter, this court gets the clear sense that the present case exemplifies the archetypal 'passing-of-the-buck' syndrome between the Delhi and UP Police.' Expressing 'serious consternation at the run of events in the present case, where two separate police forces did not perceive that critical forensic and other evidence would irretrievably disappear if it was not gathered immediately', the court recorded that 'both the Delhi and UP Police [are] remiss in complying with their duty of promptly registering an FIR.' The court then directed the Delhi Police to register a zero FIR forthwith and to transfer all material and evidence collected by them in the course of inquiring into the death of the petitioner's brother to the UP Police within a week. It also directed the UP Police to register/re-register an FIR under Section 103 of the BNS and other relevant sections in relation to the death of the petitioner's brother forthwith; and to proceed to investigate the matter without any further delay or dereliction. The court held that the stance taken by the Delhi Police, that no cognizable offence was disclosed in the oral information given to them by the petitioner as it was only related to her brother having gone missing and, thus, did not attract an FIR, 'is flawed'. The court recorded that 'there was sufficient information and material before the Delhi Police to have registered an FIR' for the offence of murder — 'regardless of the fact that the body was recovered outside their territorial jurisdiction'. The court further held that 'the Delhi Police would have been justified to designate the FIR as a 'Zero FIR' and to have transferred the investigation to the UP Police'. The UP Police, on the other hand, had justified the non-registration of the FIR on the ground that 'they must await the completion of inquest proceedings before deciding whether any cognizable offence is disclosed in the case'. The court also junked this reasoning. It noted that such a stance is contrary to BNSS Section 173 and reiterated that 'no conclusive material or opinion is required at the stage of registration of an FIR'. It went on to opine 'that there was more than ample material available with the UP Police to proceed to register an FIR for the offence of murder, straightaway'. The court noted that Section 173 of the BNSS, which deals with the registration of FIRs for cognizable offences, is equivalent to Section 154 of the CrPC, with an addition of the phrase '… irrespective of the area where offence is committed…' The court recorded, 'The obvious purpose of adding the aforesaid phrase to Section 173 BNSS is that the legislature wanted to address the mischief of police stations refusing to record information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence, on the excuse that the offence complained of has not been committed within their territorial jurisdiction. This excuse is, therefore, no longer available to any police station under the new provision of Section 173 of the BNSS.'
