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M/s Alagu Pharmacy & Ors. v. N. Magudeswari

Civil Appeal · 2018 INSC 709Decided 14 Aug 2018
Civil Appeal Nos. 8256-8257 of 2018
Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre · Justice Uday Umesh Lalit

Background

A pharmacy tenant in Coimbatore signed a compromise agreeing to vacate the rented premises after the landlady filed a forgery complaint against them with the police and, according to the tenants, pressured them during police questioning into signing the compromise. The tenants filed their appeal against the resulting compromise eviction decree more than 600 days late, and the Appellate Court condoned the delay after finding a genuine suspicion that the compromise had been coerced through police pressure. The Madras High Court, in a revision petition, overturned this condonation, holding the tenants' coercion claim was an afterthought given the long delay, and the tenants' review was also rejected.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found an "inherent contradiction" in the landlady's own position, she had filed a forgery complaint denying any valid tenancy, yet simultaneously sought the tenant's eviction under the Rent Act, and noted the compromise itself had been addressed to a police officer and arrived at during a police complaint's pendency, lending credibility to the coercion claim. It held that courts should lean in favour of parties plausibly alleging police-induced compromises, and that the High Court's revision order had failed to even engage with this aspect. The Court also reiterated settled law that an eviction cannot be ordered merely on the basis of a compromise unless a genuine statutory ground for eviction is independently established. It accordingly allowed the appeal, restored the Appellate Court's order condoning the delay, and directed that the tenants' appeal against the original eviction decree now be heard and decided on its merits, with costs imposed on the tenants for the delay.

Lesson Learnt

A settlement or compromise extracted under police pressure during a pending criminal complaint can be challenged well after the normal limitation period if there is credible evidence of coercion, and in any case an eviction decree based purely on a compromise is not valid unless an actual statutory ground for eviction is shown.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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