High Court set to wrap up petition on Delhi rent law
TNN | Oct 27, 2015, 06.52 AM ISTNEW DELHI: The Delhi high court has begun hearing the final arguments on the validity of the archaic Delhi Rent Control Act (DRCA).
A bench of Justices B D Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva is proceeding towards a verdict on the constitutional soundness of the Act as it recently heard a group of women property owners on the issue.
The petitioners attacked the DRC Act pointing out that most of the provisions were redundant. The petitioners highlighted that two parts of the Act - relating to rates of hotelslodging houses, and for the lease of vacant premises to the government in certain areas - are dead laws as there are no reported cases under these provisions in the Act.
Moreover, the petitioners argued that Sections 4, 6 and 9 of the Act relating to the control of rent have already been de rent have already been de clared unconstitutional by the HC in 2002 and the only part of the DRC Act that survives is the control of eviction. The petitioners alleged that tenants protected under the Act are determined by historical accident and not by need due to the peculiar nature of the legislation. "In fact, the poor are not getting any benefit out of the Act."
Advocate Shobha Aggarwal, the lead petitioner in the case, drew HC's attention on various amendments to the Act.She pointed out that the 1976 Amendment to the Act provided for limited inheritance of tenancy rights by legal heirs of tenants but the implementation of the Act has ensured unlimited succession rights to the tenants of both residential and commercial premises including big companies such as Life Insurance Corporation in perpetuity.
The petitioners further argued that even after the 1988 Amendment, the object of expediting disputes between landlords and tenants was not achieved and cited a chart showing that as of December 2014, 10.15% of all civil cases pending before the district courts in Delhi were as a result of the DRCA.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/High-Court-set-to-wrap-up-petition-on-Delhi-rent-law/articleshow/49546507.cms
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