A bench of Justice TS Thakur and Justice C Nagappan of
Supreme Court of India in the case of 'Kamaljit Singh vs Sarabjit Singh' Civil
Appeal No. 8410 of 2014 held on 2nd September 2014 that Non-resident Indians
(NRIs) cannot be asked to prove ownership of their property to get their
tenants evicted.
In the case in hand, an NRI who was born and brought up in India had migrated
to UK but decided to return to India in 2002 after spending 30 years in the UK
with the intention of settling down and establishing a hotel at Phagwara his
home town in Punjab. He had let out a shop in a building situated at Banga
Road, Phagwara. The tenant refused to vacate the shop. The NRI filed an
eviction petition under Section 13-B of the East Punjab Urban Land Restriction
Act, 1949, stating that he was an NRI and needed the shop for his own use and
was hence entitled to get it vacated. The rent controller dismissed his
eviction petition on the ground that the NRI failed to prove his ownership over
the premises for a period of five years before the filing of the eviction petition
as mandated under the law. On appeal by the NRI, the Punjab & Haryana High
Court also ruled against the NRI. The NRI then appealed to Supreme Court which
allowed the plea of the NRI. The Court held that Section 13-B of the said Act
is a beneficial provision intended to provide a speedy remedy to NRIs who
return to their native places and need property let out by them for their own
requirement or the requirement of those who are living with and economically
dependent upon them. Their position cannot, therefore, be worse off than what
it would have been if they were not NRIs. Once the tenant admits relationship
of landlord and tenant between him and the NRI, the NRI landlord was not under
any obligation to prove his title to the property. The court directed the
tenant to vacate the premises by March 31, 2015, subject to the condition that
he clears his rent arrears in six weeks and submits an undertaking in court
that he would clear out by that date and if he fails to abide by these, the
eviction decree can be executed right away.
Read the Full Judgment.
