Original Tenant’s Family Loses Bid To Reclaim MHADA Tenement Over Unchallenged 1974 Eviction Order And 1983 Decree: Bombay HC

Pandurang S. Nandivkar, the original allottee of tenement No. 78/2688, allegedly granted respondent No. 3 leave and licence to occupy it in 1981.

The petitioners said the Chief Officer directed on 25 May 1993 that possession be recovered from respondent No. 3 and handed to them, but MHADA later regularised the tenement in respondent No. 3’s favour by an order dated 19 September 1994.

An earlier writ petition was allowed by a Single Judge in 2001, but that decision was set aside on appeal as having been made without jurisdiction.

The 1974 eviction order had not been challenged until an amendment made in January 2012; the petitioners had also not challenged an ex parte decree in respondent No. 3’s favour in a 1982 suit.

A writ petition under Article 226 is discretionary; relief may be refused where a party approaches the court without clean hands or after unreasonable delay and laches. Although no limitation period is prescribed for filing a writ petition, it must ordinarily be filed within a reasonable time (*N.D.M.C. v. Pan Singh*).

An order cannot ordinarily be treated as ineffective merely because it is alleged to be invalid: the affected party must obtain its setting aside or a declaration of invalidity from a competent court. An order may remain effective until then, and relief may be refused on grounds including delay or lack of standing (*Board of Trustees of Port of Kandla v. Hargovind Jasraj*).

A litigant who suppresses material facts or approaches the court with tainted hands may be denied relief (*Dalip Singh v. State of U.P.*).

The Court held that the petitioners had not disclosed the 1974 eviction order in their petition, despite the original allottee having been present at the 1973 hearing, and had offered no cogent explanation for challenging that order only in 2012.

It therefore found both delay and lack of candour, and concluded that the petitioners had no subsisting right following the eviction order.

The Court also relied on the unchallenged 1983 decree, holding that the petitioners could not simply assert that it was non-binding without having it set aside.

Given that decree, the subsequent 1994 regularisation order, and the long passage of time, the Court declined to disturb the existing position or enforce the 1993 order.

It clarified that its decision determined the petitioners’ rights only as against the tenement and respondent No. 3, and did not determine the legality of respondent No. 3’s title or possession as against MHADA.

At the petitioners’ request, the existing ad-interim relief was extended for eight weeks.