Allahabad High Court Strikes Down Key Provisions Of UP Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act 2021

The Court further held that a State enactment cannot override pre-existing Parliamentary legislation on the same subject without prior Presidential assent under Article 254(2) of the Constitution of India, and that Sections 38 and 42 of the impugned Act, which confer overriding effect on the Rent Authority's jurisdiction, are equally repugnant to the procedural scheme under the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1887 read with the U.P. Civil Laws (Amendment) Act, 1972, with the consequence that the repealed 1972 Rent Control Act springs back into force to the extent of the invalidity.

A Division Bench comprising Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Swarupama Chaturvedi in a batch of sixteen writ petitions led by challenging the constitutional validity of the 2021 Act and consequential orders of Rent Authorities, observed, “…Specifically, provisions of Sections 8, 9 and 10 and provisions providing for eviction by order of Rent Authority of the Impugned Act are repugnant to the substantive law i.e. TPA. Also, Sections 38 and 42 of the Impugned Act, to the extent they seek to override the established procedure under the SCC Act read with Civil Laws Act, without prior Presidential Assent, are declared ultra vires the procedural law i.e. SCC Act and the Civil Laws Act”.

Senior Advocate Shashi Nandan appeared for the petitioner and Rahul Agarwal, Additional Advocate General and Senior Advocate Ashish Kumar Singh appeared for the respondent.

“…we are conscious that the legislative action i.e. Impugned Act may first be attempted to be protected from the vice of being declared unconstitutional. At any rate, only such provisions of the Impugned Act may be declared ultra vires as may be directly conflicted with the constitutional scheme. Other provisions, though at variance with the pre-existing laws, here TPA, SCC Act and Civil Laws Act, may not be declared ultra vires to the extent they may not be creating direct repugnancy…”, the Bench further observed.

In the lead matter, a lease granted by the Agra Municipal Corporation in 1947 over commercial premises, later renewed and passed through family settlement, became the subject of eviction and rent-recovery proceedings instituted in 2008. After the 2021 Act came into force, the landlady sought provisional rent fixation under Section 10(4) of the Act.

The Rent Authority, without adequately addressing the tenant's procedural objections, passed an ex parte order in 2022 enhancing monthly rent from Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 750 per square foot, later reiterated in 2024. Similar rent-enhancement and eviction-related orders passed against other tenants in Agra and Farrukhabad formed the subject of the connected petitions.

Though formal pleadings challenging the vires of the Act existed only in some petitions, oral submissions challenging legislative competence were advanced across the batch without objection from the State or the landlords, and the matters were heard together after a coordinate Bench recused itself. The Bench framed the challenge around the State legislature's competence to enact the law without Presidential assent and the validity of Sections 9 and 10 read together with individual Rent Authority orders.

The Bench held that tenancy legislation concerning buildings is traceable not to Entry 18 of List II (land) but to Entries 6, 7 and 13 of List III (transfer of property), relying on the Constitution Bench in Indu Bhushan Bose v. Rama Sundari Devi And Another, (1969) 2 SCC 289 as clarified by Accountant And Secretarial Services Pvt. Ltd. And Another v. Union of India And Others, (1988) 4 SCC 324. It held that the subsequent five-judge decision in Rajendra Diwan v. Pradeep Kumar Ranibala 2019 SCC OnLine SC 1586, concerned solely with the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction, did not conflict with this position, since a precedent binds only on what it actually decides.

“…the legal heirs of a deceased landlord have also been given statutory rights to seek eviction of a sitting tenant on ground of personal need. Wherever the tenant fails to vacate, he is visited with penal rent clause by way of a statutory provision. Those provisions, to our mind, conflict with the rights and liabilities or lessees and lessors as created under Chapter V of the TPA. Though that general law does contain 14 clauses [(d) to (e) under Section 108 (B)] those are not clauses that give rise to any ground for eviction. Determination of lease is governed by Section 111 of the TPA. It speaks of efflux of time; fulfillment of condition; rights being getting vested in a third party; express surrender; implied surrender; forfeiture and expiration of needs to determine the lease. Those being the only modes to determine the lease, provisions of the Impugned Act, are not reconcilable with the same, on their own. To that extent, repugnancy exists”, the Bench had noted.

Consequentially, Sections 8, 9, 10, 38 and 42 of the U.P. Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021 were declared ultra vires with effect from the date of judgment. Proceedings already concluded and unchallenged under the Act were held saved; the repealed 1972 Act, TPA, SCC Act and Civil Laws Act were held to govern all fresh proceedings from the following day. All individually impugned orders were quashed. The writ petitions were allowed with no order as to costs.

Cause Title: Inder Bhushan Sawhney v. Kanchan Kumari Jain (Dead) and 2 Others (Neutral Citation: 2026:AHC:177234-DB)

Appearances:

Petitioner: Shashi Nandan, Senior Advocate, Shreya Gupta, Archit Mehrotra and Tanishk Goyal, Advocates.

Respondent: Rahul Agarwal, Additional Advocate General, Bharat Pratap Singh, Additional CSC, Sudeep Harkauli, Ashish Kumar Singh, Senior Advocate, Devesh Kumar Verma, Advocates.

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