Publishrd on: 01 October, 2022 20:30 IST
Court – Supreme Court of India
Citation – State of U.P. v. Maharaja Dharmander Prasad Singh (1989) 2 SCC 505
Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has held that the Government cannot usurp the property in a clandestine and arbitrary manner without due authority of law. This arbitrary action of the Government is violative of the Article 300A of the Constitution of India which guarantees that a Persons must not to be deprived of property save by authority of law.
Para – 30
A lessor, with the best of title, has no right to resume possession extra-judicially by use of force, from a lessee, even after the expiry or earlier termination of the lease by forfeiture or otherwise. The use of the expression “re-entry” in the lease deed does not authorise extra-judicial methods to resume possession.
Under law, the possession of a lessee, even after the expiry or its earlier termination is juridical possession and forcible dispossession is prohibited; a lessee cannot be dispossessed otherwise than in due course of law.
In the present case, the fact that the lessor is the State does not place it in any higher or better position. On the contrary, it is under an additional inhibition stemming from the requirement that all actions of Government and governmental authorities should have a “legal pedigree”.
Drafted By Abhijit Mishra