Sanjib Banerjee, J.:— The writ petition is directed against an order dated October 17, 2008 passed by the Estate Officer under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971.
Two-fold grounds have been urged by the petitioner. The first ground is that the dispute before the Estate Officer should not be continued by one Government agency against another Government agency considering the principle recognized by the Supreme Court that differences between two public sector undertakings should be referred to a High Powered Committee of the Central Government for such Committee to resolve the issues rather than the public funds being wasted in ruinous litigation.
It does not appear that such principle can have any manner of application in the present case, particularly as the writ petitioner is controlled by the State Government and the effective respondent, Life Insurance Corporation, is ultimately controlled by the Central Government. In any event, there is no merit in such point inasmuch as the entire basis of such principle is to ensure that the disputes are resolved expeditiously. The provisions of the said Act of 1971 have given summary powers to the Estate Officer and the avowed intent of the 1971 Act was to reduce the time taken in resolving disputes between occupants of public premises and public authority owners of the public premises.
The second ground urged is that the defence of the writ petitioner was expunged without any reason thus leaving the writ petitioner without any remedy. It appears from the order dated October 17, 2008 that the notice under Section 4 of the said Act of 1971 was issued by the Estate Officer on May 24, 2008. The writ petitioner was required to reply by July 10, 2008. The writ petitioner did not attend the hearing before the Estate Officer on July 10, 2008 nor did the writ petitioner turn up on the next date of July 29, 2008. On July 29, 2008 the matter was fixed for August 26, 2008 and a last chance was afforded to the writ petitioner to file the defence. On August 26, 2008 the writ petitioner sought an adjournment on the ground that no instructions had been received from the parent department for taking steps. The Estate Officer allowed another opportunity to the writ petitioner till September 30, 2008. On such day, the writ petitioner applied for adjournment on the ground of demise of the father of the officer looking after the matter for the writ petitioner. The matter was again adjourned to October 17, 2008 and it was made clear that no further chance would be given.
On October 17, 2008, the writ petitioner made another application for extension of time, not being satisfied with nearly five months that it had already got from the date of the notice issued by the Estate Officer.
There is nothing arbitrary that appears to have been done by the Estate Officer in the light of such conduct on the part of the writ petitioner. There was, really, no defence which required to be expunged. The writ petitioner chose not to present any defence at all before the Estate Officer.
For the reasons found in the Estate Officer's order summarised hereinabove, the writ petition fails.
There will be no order as to costs.
Urgent certified photostat copy of the order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties subject to compliance with all requisite formalities.
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