Jammu & Kashmir High Court: A Single Judge Bench of Sanjay Kumar Gupta, J., dismissed a writ petition against the order of Respondent 5. The said order directed the petitioner to vacate the government accommodation given to him, by or before 08.08.2018.
The main issue, in this case, was whether Respondent 5 was justified in issuing an order for vacating the said premises without adopting the due course of law.
The Court, in this case, observed that it is an accepted fact that the petitioner was an unauthorized occupant of the said government premises because he ceased to hold the official status/position and the allottee of a Government accommodation, may it be a Government Servant, Minister or a Legislator, is required to vacate the accommodation allotted to him, after he ceases to hold the official status/position. The Court further applied the ‘useless formality theory’ according to which if there is no possibility of change or improvement in a situation even after hearing the person against whom the order is passed, then such a formality can be avoided.
The Court held that since petitioner was an unauthorized occupant of the said government accommodation for a long time now, hence he has no indefeasible right to be heard before issuing the order of eviction of public premises. Concluding that the petitioner has failed to show any valid and reasonable cause to retain the Government Accommodation in question after the petitioner ceased to be Minister or Member of State Legislative Assembly, hence his petition was dismissed.[Thakur Randhir Singh v. State of J&K,2018 SCC OnLine J&K 505, order dated 13-08-2018]
