Samarpan Varishtha Jan Parisar & Ors. vs Rajendra Prasad Agarwal & Ors.
Background
The appellant runs "Samarpan," an old age home built by the Lucknow Municipal Corporation and leased to it, with rules allowing expulsion of any inmate who violates the home's regulations after one month's notice. The respondent-plaintiffs were admitted in 2016 but were later accused of misbehaving with staff and other inmates; after being given extra time to reform, their membership was cancelled in 2019 when no improvement was seen. The plaintiffs sued for an injunction against eviction, and while the trial court initially protected their possession, the Allahabad High Court ultimately restored an interim injunction in their favour, prompting the old age home's appeal to the Supreme Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that residents of the old age home occupy their rooms as licensees, not tenants or owners: a licence merely permits use of property without creating any legal interest in it, and a licensee's possession is only "permissive," not legal possession that can be protected by injunction once the licence is validly terminated. Reviewing a long line of precedent on the licensee/lessee/trespasser distinction, the Court held it would not sit in judicial review over the home's assessment that the plaintiffs' conduct was disruptive to fellow inmates, and that a licensee cannot use an injunction to force continued residence after termination for breach of rules. The Court set aside the High Court's injunction as legally unsustainable, but directed the appellant to arrange alternative accommodation (as already offered by the Social Welfare Department) for the plaintiffs and directed periodic welfare visits by legal services authorities and para-legal volunteers to the old age home.
Lesson Learnt
A person allowed to occupy someone else's property under a licence (as opposed to a lease or ownership) has no legal right to remain once the licence is properly terminated for breach of conditions, and courts will not grant an injunction to override that termination, even in sympathetic situations like elderly residents of a care home, though courts can direct alternative welfare arrangements alongside enforcing the legal position.