In CM(M) 681/2022-DEL HC- Power conferred on High Court by Article 227 of Constitution, is power of superintendence and not one of judicial review, rules Delhi HC Justice C. Hari Shankar [18-07-2022]

Read Order: KUSHAL ANAND v. MANDHIR SACHDEVA 

Mansimran Kaur

New Delhi, July 26, 2022: The Delhi High Court has recently held that Article 227 of the Constitution of India, does not confer appellate jurisdiction.The court is only required to examine whether the authority which has passed the impugned order has, in doing so, exposed itself to supervisory correction. 

In this matter pertaining to the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, the Single bench of Justice C. Hari Shankar dismissed the  present  petition preferred in pursuance of the eviction petition  instituted  by the respondent – Mandhir Sachdeva, seeking eviction of the petitioner -Kushal Anand, from the premises located at New Rajender Nagar, Delhi.

Factual background of the case was such that the tenant premises were allotted to one Jai Singh Sachdeva, the grandfather of the respondent, by the Ministry of Rehabilitation. Jai Singh Sachdeva inducted Surinder Nath Anand, the now deceased husband of the petitioner Kushal Anand, as a tenant in the first floor of the tenanted premises in 1960. The tenancy was for residential purposes. 

It was the case of the respondent as averred in the Eviction petition that after Jai Singh Sachdeva expired on December 27, 1968, his parental uncle Jagdish Singh, as one of the co-owners who had succeeded to the ownership of the tenanted premises as a legal heir of Jai Singh Sachdeva, terminated the tenancy of the petitioner through notice dated January 6, 1970, with effect from January 31, 1970. 

The eviction petition was allowed by the Additional Rent Controller under Section 14(1)(d) as well as Section 14(1)(h) of the DRC Act, through judgment dated June 18, 2020. In pursuance of the same, the appellant appealed to the Rent Controller . However, the same was dismissed. Aggrieved by the same, the petitioner invoked the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution. 

 After hearing the submissions of the parties, the Court noted that it was exercising jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, which does not confer appellate jurisdiction. The court is only required to examine whether the authority which has passed the impugned order has, in doing so, exposed itself to supervisory correction, the Court noted.

The petitioner had contended that the alternate properties possessed by Surinder Nath Anand, on the basis of which Section 14(1)(h) of the DRC Act was invoked by the respondent, had been acquired by him prior to the petitioner succeeding to his estate and could not, therefore, be regarded as a residence acquired by the petitioner on the basis of which an eviction petition under Section 14(1)(h)) could be maintained. In relation to the same, the Court noted that such submission which was never advanced by the petitioner before the court or forum whose order was assailed under Article 227, cannot be raised before the High Court either. 

 In furtherance of the same the Bench also observed, “…power conferred on the High Court by Article 227 is a power of superintendence and not a power of judicial review. An implicit corollary is that the manner of exercise of its jurisdiction by the court or forum below cannot be gauged on the basis of submissions which were never advanced before it.”

 On the next contention of the petitioner that he was residing in the tenanted premises within a span of six months prior to the institution of the eviction petition and therefore, RCT’s finding to the contrary of the, the Court noted that that the RCT after duly appreciating the evidence had reached to the conclusion that there was no evidence that the petitioner was residing at the said location and there was no evidence to indicate that she had ever shifted to the tenanted premises. In light of these observations, the Court dismissed the instant petition on account of being meritless.