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Sunday, April 5, 2009

Tenant Eviction / Rent Control Acts with special reference to properties of serving personnel and those on verge of retirement

One of the major irritants experienced by our serving and retiring personnel is the problem of unscrupulous tenants who refuse to vacate properties when these are most required.

To counter this problem for defence personnel, most of the States have enacted provisions in their rent control Acts which provide speedy and summary procedures for eviction of such tenants. If you know anyone who is facing such problem, please advise him or her to make a trip to the local (lower) Courts and peruse such provisions in the applicable State Act. Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent) Control Act was the path-breaker in this regard since this particular Act provides for disposal of eviction requests / applications by serving or retiring personnel within a period of one month from the date of application with the Rent Control Court. In fact, Mr P V Narsimha Rao, when he was holding charge of the Defence Ministry, had written a detailed letter to all States to emulate the Kerala Act and most of the States had responded positively. The matter was re-iterated to the states in 1986 by the Defence Ministry and even infirmities in the Acts of certain States were pointed out.

The law provides us with many such enabling provisions but we must spread awareness about these especially amongst our serving personnel. A trip to the local Sainik welfare office / board is also highly recommended for personnel who are on the verge of retirement. Otherwise, if you ask me, when the property is in an urban area, it is safer to lease it out to a company or an organisation and not to an individual unless you are very sure.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Navdeep,

Thanks a million for this input. This affects almost all fauji's at some time or the other. Please do post any such specific provision in the state of Maharashtra and the Bombay Rent Control Act. Thanks in advance.


(P.S. There ARE other things to discuss till PB-4 comes !!!)

srknayar said...

Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent) Control Act 1965 I think has been repealed. Please visit link http://www.keralalawsect.org/law_reforms_report/page%2013%20-%2024.htm
comments please?

Anonymous said...

Dear Navdeep, is it applicable for commercial space also,for own use after retirement, in particular if the tenant has got a bigger commercial shop within 500m?
can you throw some light on the provisions as far as Himachal Pradesh is concerned?

as regards registering for voting, the local electoral official wants all the faujis and their families to parade themselves along with form 6, 2 photographs and a copy of the PAN card. a sure way of discouraging people to register to vote, given that it is a congress govt in power in the state!!!

Anonymous said...

Dear Navdeep,
Is it applicable in the stete of Delhi specifially in respect of commercial property for self use postretirement.I shall be thankful if you can enlighten me.
Thanks a lot.

ashwani said...

Dear Navdeep,
May God give you strength to continue your zeal to study history and share its analysis with others
Regarding Rent Control Act and letter to States.less said the better. I retired in Oct 94 . I started the eviction proceedings one year earlier as per provisions in HP rent control Act.I had to establish my bonafides.The Distt Judge opined that two rooms w/o any toilet and a chulah type old kitchen at a distance of nearly 20 ft from main house, the portion in my possession ,was sufficient for me and I lost the case.The plea and Various HC rulings stating maint of std of living didnt cut ice. We learnt he didnt record our arguments.
Iwon the case in Sessions ( with written arguments). Now inthe High Court It took me six months to get an early hearinggranted In brief I had to file another case in the lower court seeking implementation of HC order. It took me nearly 5 years plus to get the possessions. and that too when I had no other shelter. It seems the whole Civil (?) System is ganged up against the Harmed (??)Forces.

Regarding our Financial entitlements.,responsibility lies with senior offrs (CO onwards). Any officer talking about pay matters was branded a Baniya .They thought It is CDA job to deal with it No wonder we didnt know our entitlements

Col AKSethi (retd) Kullu

Col Pramd Kumar said...

Dear Navdeep,
Please post specific provision of Tenant eviction act in the state of Utter Pradesh,as I am told if the rent is more than Rs 4000/ the property is not covered under Rent Control Act.Even the Lawyer at the lower court of Noida (U.P.)are ignorant of any such provision,where retiring Def Personnel may get there
premises evicted from tenant.
Thanks & regards. Col Pramod Kumar