Delhi High Court quashes 47-year-old government notice to evict Indian Express

The Delhi High Court on Friday quashed a 47-year-old eviction notice issued by the Central government to The Indian Express newspaper seeking to oust the paper from its Bahadur Shah Zafar Road office in Delhi [Union of India v Express Newspapers Limited & Ors].The Court ruled that the notices and efforts to evict the paper out of the building by the then government were to muzzle free press and dry up its source of income.Justice Prathiba M Singh noted that the notice by which the government terminated the lease was never served on the Indian Express.“The issuance of notices to tenants with a direction to them to deposit the rent with the L&DO is a completely malicious act on behalf of the then Government. It was only meant to muzzle Express Newspapers and also dry up its sources of income and nothing more. Thus, the said notices are held to be arbitrary and mala fide. In fact, the notice dated 2nd November, 1987 by which the lease was terminated was never been served upon Express Newspapers and a copy was procured, thereafter. Express Newspapers came to know of the same from the news item in Times of India dated 15th November, 1987. Such conduct of the Government of the day is nothing but motivated to say the least,” the Court observed. Since the government’s acts were illegal acts and the litigation dragged on for nearly five decades, the Court said that costs of ₹5 lakh should be paid to the Express..The land for the building, known as Express Building, was given to the paper's founder Ram Nath Goenka by the Jawaharlal Nehru government in the 1950s. Initially, the land was allotted near Tilak Bridge. But on the request of Pandit Nehru, Goenka surrendered that property and agreed to take the plot at the Bahadur Shah Zafar Road instead. In March 1980, the Central government issued a notice of re-entry and demolition to Express. The paper said that this was retribution for its reporting of the government’s excesses during the emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi.The media house took the matter to the Supreme Court. A three-judge bench of the top court gave its celebrated verdict titled Express Newspapers Pvt Ltd and Others v Union of India and Others in 1986 and quashed the government’s notices. The Court held the notices to be violative of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed under Article 19 (1)(a) and (g) of the Constitution.Shortly after the judgement, the government again started issuing notices to the Express. Finally, a news report appeared in The Times of India on November 15, 1987 stating that the Union Government had taken over the Express Building, after issuing a notice.Express maintained that no notice was ever served to them and wrote to the government.The government instituted a suit before the High Court. Express also filed a case.Among a host of allegations, the government said that the Express used the premises for commercial purposes other than newspaper and there has been unauthorised construction..When the High Court asked for a computation of the amount owed by Express, the government’s response was ₹17,684 crores. After the Court’s repeated queries and the change of several lawyers, the amount was reduced to ₹765 crore.Now, Justice Singh has ruled that the amount computed by the Central government is “far-fetched, unreasonable and aggravated”.The Court found that the fresh notice of termination issued by the government was in “total disregard of the painstaking judgment of the Supreme Court” in 1986.It added that the paper did not violate the lease terms and the only amount it is liable to pay are the conversion charges and additional ground rent which is around ₹64 lakh..Union of India was represented by Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Kirtiman Singh and advocates A Subba Rao (now deceased), Aryan Agrawal, AT Rao and Meera Bhatia.Senior Advocates Salman Khurshid and Sandeep Sethi and advocates Amit Agarwal and Bhawani Gupta appeared for The Indian Express. .[Read Judgment]