Baburao Shantaram More vs The Bombay Housing Board and Another

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: supreme-court

Case Number: Petition No. 271 of 1952

Decision Date: 18 December 1953

Coram: M. Patanjali Sastri, Vivian Bose, Ghulam Hasan, B. Jagannadhadas

In this case, the Supreme Court of India heard an appeal titled Baburao Shantaram More versus the Bombay Housing Board and another, decided on 18 December 1953. The bench comprised Chief Justice M. Patanjali Sastri, Justice Vivian Bose, Justice Ghulam Hasan and Justice B. Jagannadhadas. The petitioner, Baburao Shantaram More, challenged the legality of certain statutory provisions under article 14 of the Constitution. The respondents included the Bombay Housing Board together with an additional party. The matter was cited as 1954 AIR 153 and 1954 SCR 572, and later referenced in several Supreme Court reports. The substantive question involved whether section 4 of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947 (Act LVII of 1947) and the newly inserted section 3-A of the Bombay Housing Board Act, 1948 (inserted by the Bombay Act XI of 1951) exceeded the limits of article 14 of the Constitution. The headnote recorded that the Court held neither provision to be ultra vires the constitutional guarantee of equality. The Court noted that the facts and arguments were fully set out in the judgment. The original jurisdiction petition, numbered 271 of 1952, sought special leave to appeal the order of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay dated 7 July 1952, which had been rendered by Chief Justice Chagla and Justice Gajendragadkar in Civil Revision Application 567 of 1952. Counsel for the petitioner was represented by an advocate, while the respondents were appearing through the Attorney-General of India, the Solicitor-General of India and their accompanying counsel. The judgment delivered on 18 December 1953 described the petitioner’s situation: he occupied rooms 387 and 388 in Barrack T-93 of the Sion Dharavi Camp in Greater Bombay. The camp, comprising numerous tenements, had been constructed and owned by the Government of India during the Second World War for military use. In 1948 the Government of Bombay, now the State of Bombay, purchased the camp and placed its management under the Bombay Provincial Housing Board, a body created by a government resolution. In the same year the Bombay Housing Board, identified as respondent No. 4, was constituted under the Bombay Housing Board Act, 1948 (Act LXIX of 1948) as a corporate entity with powers to acquire and hold property, manage lands and buildings vested in it, and to formulate and implement housing schemes. Under section 3(3) of the Act, the Board was deemed a local authority for the purposes of that legislation and the Land Acquisition (Bombay Amendment) Act.

Section 54(3) of the 1948 legislation stated that every asset placed under the care of the Bombay Provincial Housing Board would, upon a declaration by the Government of Bombay, become the property of the Board. Accordingly, on 1 June 1949 the Government of Bombay issued such a declaration, and the Sion Dharavi Camp was transferred to the Board. It was later discovered that before this transfer certain individuals, including the petitioner, had taken possession of parts of the camp without any legal authority or title. An arrangement was subsequently reached whereby the petitioner and the other occupants agreed to pay a rent that would be fixed by the Government of Bombay. The Government also promised to carry out repairs to the camp for the purpose of re-conditioning it, and the occupants, including the petitioner, consented to pay whatever rent the Government might thereafter determine. The parties signed a letter that recorded the terms of this agreement. Under that agreement the petitioner’s rent was initially fixed at fourteen rupees per month. After the Government of Bombay completed the repairs at considerable expense, it calculated a revised rent for the rooms occupied by the petitioner, fixing it at fifty-six rupees and eight annas per month.

In or about February 1950 the Board served a notice on the petitioner requiring him to vacate the rooms he was occupying by the end of March 1950. The notice also indicated that if the petitioner would agree to pay the revised rent of fifty-six rupees and eight annas per month, the Board would withdraw the notice to quit. The petitioner declined to accept the increased rent, and the Board instituted suit before the Court of Small Causes at Bombay to recover possession of the premises. In his defence the petitioner asserted, inter alia, that he was protected by the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947 (Act LVII of 1947), commonly referred to as the Bombay Rent Act. The Board, however, argued that the premises were excluded from the operation of that Act by virtue of section 4, which provides: “This Act shall not apply to any premises belonging to the Government or a local authority or apply as against the Government to any tenancy or other like relationship created by a grant from the Government in respect of premises taken on lease or requisitioned by the Government; but it shall apply in respect of premises taken on lease or in respect of premises let to the Government or a local authority.” The petitioner responded that the Board was not a local authority and therefore could not rely on the exemption in section 4; moreover, he contended that the provision was unconstitutional because it violated the equal-protection clause of the Constitution. While these arguments were being considered, the Bombay Housing Board Act was amended.

By the Bombay Housing Board (Amendment) Act, designated as Act XI of 1951, a new provision identified as Section 3-A was inserted into the statute. The text of Section 3-A declares, for the purpose of removing any uncertainty, that the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act of 1947 shall not apply, nor shall it ever be deemed to have applied, to any land or building that belongs to or is vested in the Board under or for the purposes of that Act; it shall also not apply, nor be deemed to have ever applied, against the Board in respect of any tenancies or other similar relationships created by the Board concerning such land or building; however, the Act shall continue to apply to any land or building that is let to the Board. The trial court examined this amendment and concluded that the Board qualified as a local authority within the meaning of Section 4 of the Bombay Rent Act. The court further held that Section 4 did not violate Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law. Consequently, on 14 February 1952, the trial court issued an order directing that possession of the two rooms in dispute be delivered to the Board, but it stipulated that the warrant of possession should not be issued until 15 May 1952. The petitioner challenged this order by filing a revision petition in the High Court. The High Court observed that it was difficult to categorically describe the Board as a local authority; nevertheless, it held that Section 3-A, introduced by the amendment, had retrospectively extended the exemption contained in Section 4 of the Bombay Rent Act to the Board. The High Court further found that there was no infringement of the petitioner’s fundamental right under Article 14 and therefore dismissed the revision application.

The petitioner subsequently applied to the Bombay High Court for leave to appeal to this Court, but that request was denied. He then filed a petition before this Court seeking special leave to appeal the High Court’s order, and concurrently made a substantive petition under Article 32 for enforcement of his fundamental rights. Both petitions were placed before this Court for consideration. The sole ground raised by counsel for the petitioner is that Section 3-A, which exempts lands or buildings belonging to or vested in the Board from the operation of the Bombay Rent Act, contravenes the equal protection clause of the Constitution. He argues that numerous co-operative housing societies in Bombay, incorporated under the Co-operative Societies Act, are similarly situated and share the objective of solving the housing shortage, yet the lands and buildings of those societies are not exempted from the Bombay Rent Act. As a result, tenants of the co-operative societies enjoy the full protection of the Act against rent increases and eviction, whereas tenants of the Board, by virtue of Section 3-A, are denied such protection. The petitioner further contends that the Co-operative Societies Act does not, in its terms, create a landlord-tenant relationship between a co-operative housing society and its members.

The Court noted that a cooperative housing society incorporated under the Co-operative Societies Act does not, by virtue of that Act, create a landlord-tenant relationship between the society and its members. Accordingly, there is no provision in the Act indicating that any member of such a society is a tenant of the society. No lease, licence or any other documentary evidence was produced to support the suggestion that cooperative housing societies have tenants at all. While acknowledging that these societies are incorporated entities, the Court observed that they are capable of earning profits which may be distributed among their members. In contrast, the Bombay Housing Board is an incorporated body created specifically to formulate housing schemes to address the acute shortage of accommodation in Bombay. The Board has no shareholders seeking profit distribution; it operates under the control and orders of the Government and is, in effect, a Government-sponsored body without any profit-making motive. The Court found that no material had been placed before it that could even remotely suggest, let alone prove, that the cooperative societies or their members are situated similarly to the Board and its tenants. Consequently, the petitioner could not sustain a complaint of discrimination on this ground.

Subsequently, counsel for the petitioner argued that section 3-A extended the exemption contained in section 4 of the Bombay Rent Act to the Board, effectively adding the Board’s name to the list of entities after the local authority. The contention was that section 4 discriminates against tenants of properties belonging to the Government, local authorities or the Board by denying them the benefits of the Bombay Rent Act that are available to all other tenants in Bombay. The Court observed that the exemption granted by section 4 applies to certain classes of tenants based on an intelligible differentiating factor that distinguishes them from other tenants, and that this differentiation bears a rational relationship to the purpose of the Act. The purpose of the legislation is to enable the Government to address the public need for housing accommodation. Accordingly, the Board was incorporated to achieve that objective, and it is not expected that the Government, local authorities or the Board would be driven by profit motives to unduly raise rents or evict tenants as private landlords might. Therefore, the tenants of the Government, local authorities or the Board do not require the same protection afforded to tenants of private landlords, providing a sound basis for the classification. The two categories of tenants are not placed on an equal footing by circumstance, and thus the tenants of the Government, local authorities or the Board cannot claim denial of equality.

The Court observed that the principle of equal protection of the law required a careful examination of whether any real discrimination existed between the two classes of tenants. It concluded that the two categories were not similarly situated, and therefore there was no genuine discrimination within the meaning of the constitutional guarantee. On that basis, the Court held that neither section 4 of the Bombay Rent Act nor section 3-A of the Bombay Housing Board Act could be successfully challenged as being unconstitutional on the ground of contravention of article 14 of the Constitution. The Court noted that no additional points or submissions had been raised before it for consideration. Consequently, the Court dismissed both of the pending applications. In accordance with the provisions governing applications under article 32, the Court ordered that the petitioner should bear one set of the costs incurred in the proceedings. The petition was therefore dismissed. The record identified the legal representatives as counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the respondents.