Central Information Commission
Rakesh Radheshyam Seksaria vs Directorate Of Estates on 6 November, 2018
CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
Baba Gang Nath Marg, Munirka
New Delhi-110067
F. No.CIC/DOEST/A/2017/109113
Date of Hearing : 31.08.2018
Date of Decision : 31.10.2018
Appellant/Complainant : Rakesh Radheshyam Seksaria
Respondent : CPIO
Dy. Director
Directorate of Estates
Ministry of Urban Development
Information Commissioner : Shri Yashovardhan Azad
Relevant facts emerging from appeal:
RTI application filed on : 11.05.2016
PIO replied on : 22.06.2016
First Appeal filed on : 06.07.2016
First Appellate Order on : -
2ndAppeal/complaint received on : 11.02.2017
ORDER
1. Vide RTI application dated 11.05.2016, the appellant sought information regarding the property popularly known as Kapurthala House, 3 Man Singh Road, New Delhi. The PIO replied on 22.06.2016. The queries as well as their corresponding replies are reproduced hereinafter:
Sr. Query Reply by PIO
No.
1. As on date is the property still The property is still under
under requisition and if so under requisition. On the advice of Ministry
what Law / Act. of Law, it was decided not to
derequisition the premises but to
allot it to Govt. of Punjab on a token
rent of Re. 1 per month for the use of
the premises.
2. After requisitioning the said As per available records, total carpet premises you have created area available in the building is 9615 licensee on the said property. sq. feet.
Provide full details of
area/premises given under the
license along with open land
appurtenant to the structures
given by you under the license
3. Furnish details of the Licensee As per records available in the
and his/her whereabouts. Directorate, there is no licensee.
4. Copy of the license agreement with The information sought by you is not late Mrs. Sushila Jannani Das and traceable in this Directorate, also present licensee if any. moreover, it is more than fifty years old and the same is not necessarily be provided as per RTI Act.
5. Present position of the structures Information is not traceable and land appurtenant thereto given by you on license.
6. Details of periodical inspection Till date, no inspection has been carried out by you of the entire carried out.
premises requisitioned by you.
Provide details from July 1950 till 12.05.2016 i.e. till date. If not reason for not carrying out periodical inspection to maintain a check on the premises license/rented out by you
7. The names and addresses of the As per records available, there is no present occupiers of the license licensee at present. premises. Whether the occupiers are your licensee and or / tenant.
If not how have they been allowed by you to enter the premises.
Reasons for the same.
8. You have rented out the premises The information sought is not to the Government of Punjab. traceable in this Directorate, Details of the Area of the premises moreover, it is more than fifty years rented out i.e. land and buildings/ old, therefore, need not be provided structures separately. Copy of the as per RTI Act. rent agreement
9. The present position regarding the As per records available in the rental agreement and license of Directorate, there are no such Mrs. Sushila Jarmani Das. Are documents.
both the agreements subsisting till date? If not reasons for the same.
10. Details of payment received under As per available records, no payment the rent and license and from has been received under the rent and whom. Provide details of the same license for the last 15 years. for the last 15 years.
2. Dissatisfied with response received from PIO, the appellant filed first appeal and same remained unheard. Feeling aggrieved, the appellant approached the Commission.
3. Both the parties are present and heard. The nature of present case involves a long history of disputed rights over the ownership of the property 'Kapurthala House'. For the purpose of the present determination, it would be in fitness of things that a brief background is recorded.
4. Both the parties are present and heard. It is the contention of the appellant that he is successor in interest of one Late R.M Sakseria who had purchased property no. 3, Man Singh road referred to as Kapurthala House. The property is stated to be purchased from late Maharaja Paramjit Singh the erstwhile ruler of Kapurthala state vide sale deed executed on 01.01.1950 for valuable consideration. The property remained in possession of said late R.M. Sakseria till 04.12.1950 when the Govt. of India took over the possession of property after process of requisition under the Delhi Premises (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1947. As per appellant, soon thereafter, the Govt. of India inducted the Govt. of Punjab as licencee on a token rent of Re. 1/- per month.
5. Thereafter the appellant filed a Civil Suit No. 654/1967 before the Delhi High Court seeking declaration of his title and other reliefs. The suit was decreed in favour of predecessor in interest of appellant/ appellant. The said decision was successfully challenged by Govt. of Punjab before a Division bench of High Court. The High Court held the State of Punjab to be the owner of property. A special leave petition was filed by appellant before the Hon'ble Supreme Court wherein the court held the State of Punjab to be the rightful owner and held that the transferor Maharaja had no valid title at the time of execution of sale deed. The relevant observations from the judgment of Apex Court in Draupadi Devi and Ors. vs. Union of India (UOI) and Ors. (09.09.2004 - SC) :
MANU/SC/0728/2004 are reproduced:
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29. The determination of the issue as to whether the suit property was the private property of the Ruler of Kapurthala State recognised as such by the Government of India or whether it was the State property of Kapurthala State, which merged into the PEPSU and thereafter transferred by the Government of India to the State of Punjab (Defendant No. 2), is crucial and decides the fate of the present litigation. It is crucial because the plaintiff claims title from the Maharaja of Kapurthala; if the Maharaja's title to the suit property was good, then the plaintiff has good title; conversely, if the Maharaja had no title to the suit property as on the date of the conveyance dated 10.1.1950, then the plaintiff gets no title and, therefore, his suit must fail.Nemo dat quoad non habet.
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The Commands of 1940 and 1948:
30. The plaintiff attempted to prove his title by showing that the Maharaja had a good title because the suit property was the private property of the Maharaja bought from his personal funds and not the State property of Kapurthala purchased from State funds. Despite the allocation made by the aide memoirs on 1.3.1937 prepared by Col. Fisher, the plaintiff's case is that by reason of the subsequent command of the Maharaja dated 1.1.1940 the classification made by the aide memoirs was overridden and the property remained as personal property of the Maharaja, Consequently, under the covenant it was bound to be recognised as personal property which was guaranteed under the covenant. Since the suit properly was the personal property of the Maharaja, the Maharaja had good title which had passed to the plaintiff, is the line of argument of the plaintiff. A number of legal arguments in support and voluminous documents have been placed on record. The Division Bench of the High Court meticulously considered everyone of the documents on record and totally disbelieved the case of the plaintiff as to the existence of this alleged command of the Maharaja dated 1.1.1940 and another alleged command dated 11.8.1948 declaring the suit property as his private property. There is serious controversy as to whether the said documents were ever issued, whether the said documents were proved on record, and if so, what the legal consequences would be. We may add here that, apart from these two disputed documents, the only other document in which there is any reference to the command of 1940 (without indicating the specific date) is a letter dated 11.4.1950 written by Dewan Jarmani Dass to V.P. Menon which appears to have been written: "in order to clear my position and to clear some misunderstanding" as to the sale of the said property to Dewan Jarmani Dass. In this letter, it is stated that Maharaja of Kapurthala in 1940 passed an order in unequivocal terms that 'Kapurthala House' should be considered as his personal property. Hence, Dewan Jarmani Dass said this should be treated as personal property of the Maharaja and, consequently, his own rights should remain protected.
31. Having carefully perused the documents placed on record, and considered the arguments of the learned counsel, we are inclined to agree with the findings of the Division Bench about both these documents. As to the command of 1940, it has been held proved by the learned Single Judge only on the basis of adverse inference and secondary evidence. The Division Bench has correctly pointed out the circumstances under which secondary evidence could have been let in did not exist at all The inconsistency in the pleadings as to the particulars of the documents led to the resulting confusion in the defendants admitting possession and denying possession in succession. One thing, however, strikes us that in the entire correspondence, which the Maharaja contemporaneously had up to the sale of the suit property, there was no reference to this command at all. While it may not be possible to agree with the positive conclusion drawn by the Division Bench that this command was fabricated and clandestinely inserted by the plaintiff in the records of the Archives Department, we too agree that these documents have not been proved in accordance with law.
.....
46. We are of the view that after the Government of India took over all the properties of the Ruler of the Kapurthala State, by an act of State, assuring him by the covenant only that he would be entitled to the full ownership, use and enjoyment of all private properties. A procedure was prescribed for recognition of such private properties.
The evidence on record does not suggest that at any point of time the Ruler of Kapurthala had disputed the power of the Government of India to decide the issue as to whether the suit property was the property of the State of Kapurthala or private property of the Ruler. On the contrary, the correspondence placed on record suggests that at all points of time the Ruler of Kapurthala accepted the position that the Government of India had the right to decide the nature of the property and was merely pleading that the suit property be declared as his private property. Finally, in any event, we are of the view that the issue as to whether the Government of India was obliged to recognise the private property of the Ruler of Kapurthala, and whether, under the terms of the covenant (Article XII of the covenant), the Ruler of Kapurthala was entitled to have it thus recognised, are disputes which are clearly barred by Article 363 and the court had no jurisdiction to decide the said issues. .......
88. On 11.5.1960, R.M. Seksaria (the plaintiff) filed a suit in the Delhi High Court for declaration of his title to the suit property.
89. The Government of India had taken a decision that the suit property had been refused to be recognised as the private property of the late Maharaja of Kapurthala. It took the stand that the suit property was State property and devolved upon PEPSU, and thereafter, on its successor, State of Punjab. In the meanwhile, the Government of India had allowed the State of Punjab to use the property.
90. By 10.3.1987 the requisitioning of the property came to an end. By this time, however, there was a suit for declaration of title of the property. The State of Punjab and the Government of India denied that R.M. Seksaria had derived any title to the suit property, and, therefore, refused to hand it back to R.M. Seksaria, despite the requisitioning order having come to an end.
91. On 18.51987, R.M. Seksaria filed a writ petition, CWP No. 1612/87 in the High Court of Delhi for a direction to the Union of India, the Director of Estate, Ministry of Urban Development and the State of Punjab to give vacant possession of the suit property to the petitioners. This writ petition was heard along with the first appeal RFA (OS) No. 19 of 1989 filed by the State of Punjab and Union of India impugning the decree in favour of the plaintiff which had been made by the learned Single Judge. When the writ petition was taken up for hearing, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners and the present civil appeal fairly submitted to the court that, if the court accepted the case of the plaintiff then the petitioners would be entitled to the reliefs prayed for in the writ petition. By its judgment dated 8.12.2000, the Division Bench of the High Court dismissed the writ petition by observing thus in Paragraph 4:
"In the light of the findings rendered by us in RFA(OS) 19/89 the plaintiff has no right at all in the suit property, the petitioners as legal representatives of the plaintiff in the suit, have absolutely no right to pray for the issuance of writ of mandamus and other reliefs."
92. This decision of the Division Bench can hardly be faulted. We see no reason to interfere. In the result, this appeal is also dismissed.
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6. Thereafter review petition as well as Curative petitions in the aforesaid case as preferred by appellant were also dismissed. Thus, the findings of Supreme Court attained finality. As per the respondent, the appellant has again filed a Writ Petition bearing no. 4256/2015 before the Delhi High Court over issue of de-requisitioning of the property. The case is stated to be sub judice.
Decision:
7. The Commission finds that notwithstanding the determination of rights conclusively by the Supreme Court, the appellant has a right under the RTI Act to examine public records. The PIO has cited the information sought under points no. 1,4,5,8,9 as non traceable. Also, while replying to query no. 4, the PIO has proceeded with a notion that there was no liability to provide old documents. The decision of PIO is misplaced and based on misreading of RTI law.
8. Section 8(1) provides for the clauses under which an information can be denied. Section 8(3) controls and restricts the application of Section 8(1). It reads as:
Section 8: (3) Subject to the provisions of clauses (a), (c) and (i) of sub-section (1), any information relating to any occurrence, event or matter which has taken place, occurred or happened twenty years before the date on which any request is made under section 6 shall be provided to any person making a request under that section.
The import of the aforesaid provision is that after cessation of 20 years from date of occurrence of any event, information relating to that even cannot be denied under any exemption clause enumerated in Section 8(1) of the RTI Act, except clause (a), (c), (i).
9. The Commission finds the reply of PIO on points no. 1,4,5,8,9 of the RTI application as improper and sets aside the same. The plea of non availability of record is no plea under the RTI Act and that too, when a Writ Petition over the issue is still pending adjudication. The PIO is directed to search for the records and furnish information sought under the relevant points. Decision shall be complied within 4 weeks of receipt of this decision.
10. The appeal is allowed in aforesaid terms.
Yashovardhan Azad) Information Commissioner Authenticated true copy. Additional copies of orders shall be supplied against application and payment of the charges prescribed under the Act to the CPIO of this Commission.
(R.P.Grover) Designated Officer