“Most of the times, the winner turns out to be the actual loser”, Bombay HC on the costs of judicial delays [Read Judgment]

The Bombay High Court recently had occasion to take special note of the judicial delays that plague the system, while dealing with a three-decade old property dispute. The Court remarked,.“Courts and delays are correlatives; they go together. The reasons are a legion. They range from infrastructural inadequacies to insufficient adjudicators to protracted procedures to plain misplaced priorities…. .Given the enormous and inevitable delays in judicial adjudication, most of the times, the winner turns out to be the actual loser. The victory remains hollow: a pyrrhic victory (a victory that is not worth winning because the winner has lost so much in winning it). Interim order or no interim order, procedural delays or other reasons, unless the blame rests on the petitioner, the delay in the court’s disposing the matter should not hurt him. If mere delay with nothing more were to defeat a person’s right, it would only put a premium on those who take delight in delaying and dragging the proceedings.”.The property dispute before the Court dated back to 1986 and involved generations of claimants and various subsequent developments that had hindered its conclusive adjudication. The case at hand even prompted Justice Dama Seshadri Naidu to recall the words of Charles Dickens when he said,.“…innumerable children may have been born into the cause; innumerable young people may have married into it; innumerable old people may have died out of it.“.The judge proceeded to observe,.“The little of the plaintiffs may have been promised a new toy cycle when the case is settled, but may have grown up pending the case, possessed a real cycle, ridden it through his life, and ridden away into the other world. A case can be perennial but not the life, nor its needs. As it were, courts have time machines, for cases remain constant decades on end. But not the clients or causes.”.The judge was, however, circumspect to emphasise that he should nevertheless stick to the precedent-based system of adjudication, while commenting,.“It is only an alternative thought, but the precedential weight pulls me back to the path of judicial propriety.“.Factual Background.Justice Naidu noted that in the case at hand, ‘Generations ago,’ a landlord let two shops out to a tenant. After both the original landlord and tenant passed away, their legal heirs succeeded. Eventually, in the year 1986, the wife and seven children of the landlord filed a suit to evict the tenants on the grounds of bona fide requirement of possession and arrears of rent..During the trial, the owners gave up their claim on the arrears of rent, but they persisted with the bona fide requirement under Section 13(1)(g) of the Bombay Rent Control Act. According to Section 13 (1) (g) of the Act,.“The landlord shall be entitled to recover the possession of the premises, if the court is satisfied that the premises are reasonably and bona fide required by the landlord for occupation by himself or by any other person for whose benefit the premises are held.”.Eventually, in 2001, the trial Court decreed the suit in favour of the owners. Aggrieved by the ruling, the tenants filed appeal, which was dismissed by the Appellate Court. Thereafter, in 2016, they moved a Civil Revision Application before the Bombay High Court. In response, the owners re-asserted that they required to disputed land so that it may be used by their unemployed children..The tenants, however, highlighted that two of the owner’s children had since secured employment during the pendency of the suit. Further, it was also argued that the owner’s legal heirs had taken in a new tenant on the disputed property. In view of these submissions, it was contended that the claim of bonafide requirement of the disputed property was false. Had there been such a requirement, the owners would have used the property themselves, rather than letting it out to a third party, the tenants argued. The tenants further submitted that the landlords kept two rooms near the leased property locked..High Court on when subsequent developments would extinguish a claim .Ultimately, the question came down whether the owners’ claim over the property had been completely eclipsed by subsequent events, such as employment during the pendency of the case..To decide on this question, particular reliance was placed on the case of Gaya Prasad v Pradeep Shrivastava, in which case it was held that,“the crucial date for deciding as to the bona fides of the requirement of the landlord is the date of his application for eviction.” Appreciating the observations made in this case, Justice Naidu had also noted that,.“… to overshadow the genuineness of the need, the subsequent events must be of such nature and of such a dimension that the petitioning party’s need should have been completely eclipsed by such subsequent events.”Bearing these principles in mind, and given the heavy costs that emanate from litigation delays, the Court eventually ruled in favour of the owners, remarking,“True, two of the many children have secured employment. But that is hardly surprising in three decades and three years. That has not taken away the owners’ need completely. That development has not eclipsed their need, so to say.”Inter alia, the Court also observed that the tenants had raised several subsequent developments at a delayed stage, and furthermore that there was no clinching evidence to establish their allegations. The Court, therefore, dismissed the application filed by the tenants stating,.“Thus, viewed from any perspective, the applicants have failed to establish that this Court should overturn the concurrent findings by exercising its revisional jurisdiction under Section 115 of CPC. The case deserves dismissal, and it is dismissed with costs.”.[Read the Judgment].Bar & Bench is available on WhatsApp. For real-time updates on stories, Click here to subscribe to our WhatsApp.