Union Govt Initiates Eviction Proceedings Against Sujan Singh Park North, Real Estate Company Moves Delhi HC

New Delhi: The Union government has initiated eviction proceedings against Sujan Singh Park North, a colonial-era building complex, saying that the lease of the place had ended in 1960 owing to the failure to address breaches of the lease conditions, reported Indian Express.

The colonial-era building complex is situated next to the Khan Market in New Delhi and also includes the iconic Ambassador Hotel. On June 11, the Land and Development Office (L&DO) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs issued an eviction notice to Sir Sobha Singh and Sons, which is the real estate company that built the complex.

Ever since it was given the land on lease to develop Sujan Singh Park in 1945, the company has been running the complex. The firm has been asked to respond to the notice by Friday (June 19) as to why an eviction order should not be passed.

The L&DO, which has initiated proceedings under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971, has said that the 1945 lease had been re-entered on August 5, 1960 due to the company’s failure to rectify breaches of two clauses of the lease. Re-entry here indicates to the termination of the lease in event of a breach of the lease.

The L&DO has said that no renewal, fresh allotment or fresh lease had been executed or granted since 1960, and the continued occupation of the property was without authority of law, reported Indian Express.

Sir Sobha Singh & Sons Pvt. Ltd had moved the Delhi high court against the June 11 notice, with advocate Shaunak Kashyap, who represented the company in the high court saying that it got “substantive relief” from the judiciary.

Kashyap said that while the notice rested on a June 9 judgment of the Tis Hazari court, the government has told the high court it would not rely on the Tis Hazari court judgment.

“At the hearing in the High Court on Wednesday, we argued that the notice was illegal in so far as it rested on that judgment. This forced the government’s counsel to withdraw the operative portion of the notice that threatened eventual eviction, thereby granting us substantial relief…A formal stay was thus unnecessary precisely because the government itself gave up the operative basis of the threatened eviction, based on our arguments before the vacation bench – and that, in the circumstances, is substantive relief,” Kashyap told Indian Express.

“Any eviction must now begin afresh, on a fresh notice, with the government first proving that its 1960 ‘re-entry’ was valid — something it failed to establish in 49 years of trial – through a full inquiry with evidence and cross-examination, in which the residents, Hotel Ambassador, the Traders’ Association and the RWA are each entitled to be heard before the Director of Estates,” he added.

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