Tenants’ travails

The stupendous increase in rent by the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) was arbitrary and unconstitutional, held Justices S. Radhakrishnan and V. M. Kanade of the Mumbai High Court when ruling on the writ petition filed by the All India LIC Tenants Action Committee headed by Amarnath Kamat. The judges hearing the petition also held that the guidelines issued by the Centre in May 2002 under the Public Premises Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants Act 1991 to prevent such arbitrary use of power to evict genuine tenants from public premises have statutory force and are binding on LIC, according to a write-up in the Times Property section of The Times of India of April 24, 2004. The Public Premises Act was originally intended for use against government employees who refused to vacate their government owned premises on retirement or termination or resignation from their employ­ment. Subsequently it was extended to all tenants of government owned premises.

"From 1997 to 2003 is the story of a collective fight,” Persis Kothawalla was quoted in The MumbaiNewsline of April 13, 2004. "LIC’s policies were affecting nearly 2,000 tenements and lakhs of people. It wasn’t my fight alone,” added 67-year-old Kothawalla who was one of the many objecting to LIC’s arbitrary hikes in rent. But her case was treated separately because she was the only one who was served a notice in September 2003 asking her to pay up a sum of Rs 5,27,518 or else face legal action.

For her 1,492 sq ft two-bedroom apartment in Queen’s Court at Churchgate which she had inherited under her aunt’s will, Kothawalla was paying Rs 148 as basic rent. In September 1997 the rent was raised to Rs 2,303 while neighbors occupying nearly 800 sq ft more in their three-bedroom flats were asked to pay Rs 2,223 as the revised rent, the details were related in the Times Property supplement. Her complaint letters to rectify the error were unheeded. In the meanwhile the doughty Kothawalla paid the increased rents with an accompanying letter of protest each time. "The law of the land should apply equally to all. Article 14 of the Constitution is the basis of my contention,” she avers. Keen to "expose the unprofessional conduct of LIC which is supposed to be a public financial body,” she regrets that they have a huge estate department but are unable to cite reasons for their inconsistent policies or to rectify their mistakes.

The shocker for Kothawalla came in February 2003 when she received a letter stating that her basic rent has been revised more than 25 times to Rs 59,680 per month. Nevertheless, the rent bills until August 2003 showed the old bill amount of Rs 2,303 which were duly paid. In September came the ultimate blow asking her to pay Rs 5,27,518 including the arrears!

"This is the LIC’s way of evicting tenants living here. There are a lot of senior citizens (here) who have retired from their jobs... from where will they get the money?” asks tenant Neville Vakil. As Kothawalla’s husband Perviz told The MumbaiNewsline correspondent, "I retired 13 years ago; my wife (who retired as lecturer in English literature from Nirmala Niketan College) gets a handsome pension of Rs 292. We have a beautiful home but we are not rich.”

"We don’t understand why the LIC asks for such amounts as rents as it has neither constructed the property nor does it contribute even a paisa to its maintenance,” was Kamath’s rationale. "The locality that they talk about is looked after and maintained by the tenants here. The Oval ground has been reconstructed and maintained by residents and tenants living here,” he added. In fact Kotha-walla’s experience in battling authorities was honed when as a member of the Oval Cooperage Residents Association she joined forces to transform the Oval Maidan from a druggers’ den to a beautiful open space.

The Committee expects that dissatisfied with the Bombay High Court ruling the LIC may appeal to the Supreme Court. As Kothawalla resentfully pointed out, "We have to pay fees to advocates and solicitors of eminence while they are fighting us on our money...Why pay for a government which cannot protect the rights of its people?” The legal team representing the tenants were senior counsels Iqbal Chagla and Navroz Seervai, Darius Khambatta and Shyam Mehta, instructed by Federal and Rashmikant.