The Supreme Court Friday stayed the Delhi High Court’s order asking Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), that publishes the Congress party’s mouthpiece National Herald, to evict Herald House. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said the question to be decided was whether there was a violation of the lease.
The Supreme Court Friday stayed the Delhi High Court’s order asking Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), that publishes the Congress party’s mouthpiece National Herald, to evict Herald House. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said the question to be decided was whether there was a violation of the lease.
AJL had moved the SC challenging the HC’s February 28, 2019 order. The apex court has issued notice to the Centre and sought a response within four weeks.
The matter was taken to the Delhi HC after the Centre ended a 56-year-old lease and asked AJL to vacate the premises as there was no printing or publishing activity going on. Under the lease, executed by AJL on January 10, 1967, the premises was to be used to construct a building for the bonafide use of their press and for no other purpose.
In its order on February 28, a division bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao upheld a single-judge bench’s findings that “the dominant purpose” for which Herald House was leased out to AJL “no longer exists”.
“If all these factors are taken note of and a decision is taken by the respondents (Land and Development Officer, Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs) to say that the dominant purpose for which the lease was granted has been violated and there has been misuse of the conditions of the lease, in the absence of mala fides or ulterior motive having been established, the writ court has rightly refused to interfere into the matter,” it said, in a 63-page order.
The court also said that the acquisition of AJL’s shares by Young Indian (YI), whose shareholders are Congress president Rahul Gandhi, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and party leaders Motilal Vora and Oscar Fernandes, was “a clandestine and surreptitious transfer of the lucrative interest in the premises to Young Indian.”
It was responding to senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, who, appearing for AJL, argued that it was a “complete antithesis of company law to say that change in shareholding of a company would lead to change in lessee of properties owned by it”.
AJL had moved the SC challenging the HC’s February 28, 2019 order. The apex court has issued notice to the Centre and sought a response within four weeks.
The matter was taken to the Delhi HC after the Centre ended a 56-year-old lease and asked AJL to vacate the premises as there was no printing or publishing activity going on. Under the lease, executed by AJL on January 10, 1967, the premises was to be used to construct a building for the bonafide use of their press and for no other purpose.
In its order on February 28, a division bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao upheld a single-judge bench’s findings that “the dominant purpose” for which Herald House was leased out to AJL “no longer exists”.
“If all these factors are taken note of and a decision is taken by the respondents (Land and Development Officer, Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs) to say that the dominant purpose for which the lease was granted has been violated and there has been misuse of the conditions of the lease, in the absence of mala fides or ulterior motive having been established, the writ court has rightly refused to interfere into the matter,” it said, in a 63-page order.
The court also said that the acquisition of AJL’s shares by Young Indian (YI), whose shareholders are Congress president Rahul Gandhi, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and party leaders Motilal Vora and Oscar Fernandes, was “a clandestine and surreptitious transfer of the lucrative interest in the premises to Young Indian.”
It was responding to senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, who, appearing for AJL, argued that it was a “complete antithesis of company law to say that change in shareholding of a company would lead to change in lessee of properties owned by it”.