New Delhi, The Supreme Courtroom on Thursday introduced “curtains down” on a 63-year-old tenancy dispute by ordering the authorized inheritor of the tenant handy over the possession of the “Mansarovar Palace” cinema corridor in Prayagraj to the kin of the true proprietor.
SC evicts tenant, asks handy over cinema corridor to proprietor after 63 yrs of authorized battle
“We lastly carry the curtains down on this lengthy drawn out litigation in regards to the cinema corridor. For the explanations said above, the enchantment is allowed and the judgment and order of the excessive court docket dated January 9, 2013 in Writ… of 1999 is put aside,” a bench of Justices M M Sundresh and K V Viswanathan said.
The court granted time till December 31, 2025 to the respondents to vacate the premises and hand over a “peaceable possession” of the suit premises.
The same would be “topic to the respondents submitting the standard endeavor and clearing all arrears, if any, of lease/use and occupation prices” within four weeks from the date of the verdict.
The legal tussle saw two rounds of litigation and finally Atul Kumar Aggarwal, the legal heir of late Muralidhar Aggarwal, won the case and as a result legal heirs of tenant late Mahendra Pratap Kakan will now have to hand over the possession of the cinema hall.
The top court set aside a 2013 decision of the Allahabad High Court, which dismissed the eviction plea of the owner’s family and upheld an appellate authority’s decision allowing the tenant to continue possession of the cinema hall.
The dispute stems from a 1952 lease agreement under which the tenant, represented by the late Ram Agya Singh, occupied the cinema premises.
Murlidhar purchased the property in 1962 and filed multiple eviction suits over the years, citing bona fide need for the property.
Prior litigation under the Uttar Pradesh Rent Control Act of 1947 ended in favour of the tenant, but a fresh application for eviction was filed in 1975 under the newer 1972 Rent Control Act.
The prescribed authority initially allowed the eviction, citing genuine personal need.
However, this was reversed on appeal, prompting a challenge in the High Court and, eventually, the Supreme Court.
Allowing the plea of the owners in the second round, Justice Viswanthan, penning a 24-page judgement, emphasised that the bona fide requirement of a landlord must be “liberally construed.”
The decision highlighted that the cinema premises had been wanted to help the owner’s household, significantly Atul Kumar, the disabled son of Murlidhar, who had no unbiased technique of livelihood.
The highest court docket junked the tenant’s arguments that the owner’s household was concerned in different companies or had ample earnings.
The decision mentioned the claims had been unsubstantiated and irrelevant to the authorized requirement for proving real want.