The Supreme Court has determined that individuals inheriting tenancy rights under the former West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act of 1956 will retain uninterrupted possession of these rights.
Consequently, they cannot be evicted under the West Bengal Tenancy Premises Act of 1997, even after the five-year period specified in Section 2(g) of the new legislation.
The Supreme Court issued this ruling while overturning the concurrent decisions made on June 29, 2022, by a single judge of the Calcutta High Court and by a division bench on December 8, 2022. Both high court rulings had reached an opposing conclusion, asserting that the new Act nullified the tenancy rights of former tenants who inherited their rights under the 1956 Act.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Prasanna B. Varale at the Supreme Court also voiced concern over the “loose drafting” of the 1997 Act by the state legislature, which has resulted in confusion and subsequent litigation.
“Statutory laws operate from the date of their enforcement i.e., prospectively. In case the legislature intends to make a law retrospective then such an intention of the legislature must be shown clearly and unambiguously in the statute itself. The Division Bench’s mere interpretation of a statutory provision will not make the law retrospective and take away the heritable rights of a tenant,” read the judgment authored by Justice Dhulia.
“In view of the above, we hold that Smt. Usha Mitra and the appellants jointly inherited the tenancy from Sh. S.K. Mitra, in the year 1970. Thus, the impugned judgment is liable to be set aside as appellants’ tenancy did not expire in the year 2006, by the introduction of 1997 Act, in the absence of a clear and unequivocal intention in the 1997 Act to have a retrospective operation. Accordingly, these appeals are allowed. Orders dated 29.06.2022 and 08.12.2022 of the Single Judge and the Division Bench respectively are set aside,” added the judgment.
The Supreme Court issued its ruling in favor of tenant Rajesh Mitra and his sibling, who challenged the high court's concurrent findings that their tenancy rights would be extinguished five years after the enactment of the new law. According to Section 2(h) of the 1997 Act, tenancy rights inherited from parents are considered nullified after this five-year period.
Under the previous 1956 Act, there were no limitations on a person's tenancy rights. Rajesh's father was the original tenant beginning in 1970. Following his death, Rajesh's mother, Usha Mitra, became the tenant, and upon her passing, the tenancy rights were transferred to Rajesh for the premises located at Room 208, 2nd Floor, 252 A Park Street, Calcutta.
“We do not doubt the wisdom of the legislature but we are constrained to hold that the case at hand reflects loose drafting, as it seems to have created more problems than it sought to resolve.
Ambiguous drafting leads to manifold problems and generates lengthy litigations, as it has evidently done in the case at hand. There is no clarity in the 1997 Act to suggest that it extinguishes the rights of all tenants (who inherited tenancy rights under Old Act) retrospectively,” Justice Dhulia observed.
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