THE BACKGROUND:
About 25 year back my grandmother let out the frontal portion of the ground floor flat for commercial purpose by virtue of an agreement (Salami Bhara- no such thing is mentioned in the agreement, nor any amount of advance is mentioned). Later on the tenancy was transferred to some other person (a lady- now very old and her children are representing them as legal heirs) by virtue of a new agreement. After death of grandmother my father became the owner of the flat in question by virtue of a Family Settlement and the property is properly mutated in father’s name (father pays municipal tax).
THE CURRENT SCENARIO:
1. The flat consists of two bed rooms, one living room, one kitchen, one bathing room, one lavatory. However, as I mentioned earlier, one of the bed rooms (frontal portion of the flat i.e. road side portion of the portion) had already been let out for commercial purpose and hence my parents and I are living in the rest of the portion of the flat consisting of one bed room, one living room, one kitchen, one bathing room, one lavatory. My father is a retired official of a central government undertaking organization and my mother is a home-maker. I am 30 years old. My parents sleep in the bed room and I sleep in the living room. I am an M.Com and PGDM (Finance) and doing a fulltime job. Besides, I am studying ICWA also (have already cleared one group in inter examination). But as I do not have a separate room, my study is being hampered. Besides, my parents are not able to plan for my marriage due to space problem (no other bedroom is available for me and my would-be-wife).
2. We have requested them so many times to vacate the let out portion for we need it for own use. But they are not ready to listen to that.
3. For 17 months they did not pay rent and then after a lot of persuasion we recovered all the dues at once. Again for last 3 months they have not paid rent (550/- per month). It is to mention that we draw the rent receipt in the name of the original tenant i.e. the old lady and not in name of any of her sons or others.
4. And when we are trying to talk with them they are harassing us by saying that “I will not look after this matter now….my brother/ elder brother will look after this issue….go and talk to him” and when we approached to that person then he advised us to go and talk to some other. Thus all dialogue/ negotiation processes have failed that were attempted by us.
5. For last 15 years the shop is closed and no commercial activities are being carried out here. It is under lock and key. The original tenant has become very old and her sons are well established.
6. A lot of damage is happening to the property i.e. condition of the window has become very bad (it is visible from outside). And we don’t know the condition inside.
QUERIES:
1. Under such circumstances, what would be the right approach? Serving an eviction notice?
2. What would be grounds on which we should serve the notice?
3. Is there a merit in the case in our favour, if we finally go for litigation?
4. What would be probable plea that they can take?
5. In normal circumstances, roughly, what would be the time frame to get the case resolved?
6. Can we have an injuction against tenant so that he cannot carry out any repair work or business in the premises (it has remained closed for almost 15 years now) after serving the eviction notice?
7. We are also expecting that the tenant is so notorious that he may, after we take any legal action, lodge some false FIR of some cognizable nature (e.g. we are threating, putting them in fear of killing , hurting etc to get them vacate our property) to have my father arrested. What should I do in the given scenario?
Regards
Saha
