Madras Race Club moves High Court against premature termination of 99-year lease

Justice R.M.T. Teekaa Raman grants time till Monday to the Tamil Nadu government to file its counter-affidavit to the MRC’s plea to dispense with the requirement of issuing a two-month-long pre-suit notice

The Madras High Court on Thursday (September 19, 2024) granted time till Monday (September 23) to the Tamil Nadu government to file its counter-affidavit to an application preferred by the Madras Race Club (MRC), seeking exemption from serving a two-month-long pre-suit notice on the government before filing a civil suit against the premature termination of a 99-year lease granted to it in 1946 with respect to the 160.86 acres of land at Guindy in Chennai.

Justice R.M.T. Teeka Raman granted the time since senior counsel P. Wilson and Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran, representing the Revenue Secretary and Chennai Collector, respectively, insisted that the government must be allowed to file its counter-affidavit to the application. They also claimed that the government had already taken possession of the land, and only the buildings remained to be handed over.

However, senior counsel P.H. Arvindh Pandian, representing the MRC, stoutly countered the claim of the government having taken possession of the land and asserted that the property continued to be in possession of the club. He said a horse race was conduced even as latest as Saturday (September 14, 2024) at the club property and therefore, it was wrong on the part of the government to claim that the property had been taken possession of.

Mr. Pandian said the MRC had chosen to file the application since 80(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) requires every civil suit against the Centre or the State government to be filed only after expiration of two months since the serving of a written pre-suit notice. However, 80(2) of the CPC empowers the court to grant leave (permission) to file the suit even without the issuance of the two-month-long pre-suit notice.

The only pre-condition for granting leave (permission) was that the court must be satisfied of an urgent and immediate need for the plaintiff to obtain interim relief against the government without waiting for two months. Therefore, the issue of allowing the application was entirely between the court and the applicant, with the government having absolutely no role to play at the preliminary stage, the senior counsel argued.

Mr. Pandian said it was only after the court allows the application and the suit gets numbered that the question of hearing the government would arise. In so far as the present case was concerned, he said a Government Order (G.O.) was issued on September 6 this year for the premature termination of the lease. The G.O. also instructed the Chennai Collector to take possession of the lands forthwith.

The case

Two days later, the revenue officials descended with a huge posse of police personnel and sealed the club premises on September 9. Immediately, the MRC complained about the coercive action to a Division Bench comprising Justices S.S. Sundar and K. Rajasekar who were already seized of a writ appeal filed by the club alleging arbitrary demand of exorbitant rental arrears by the State government.

When the judges questioned how the termination of lease as well as possession proceedings could be taken together without any notice to the club, Advocate General P.S. Raman gave an undertaking that separate proceedings would be issued for terminating the lease as well as for regaining possession. The Division Bench had recorded the undertaking given by the A-G, the senior counsel pointed out.

Thereafter, Revenue Secretary P. Amudha wrote to the club on September 9, stating that the government had decided to terminate the March 8, 1946, lease agreement executed in favour of the MRC and that the lease stands terminated with effect from September 6, 2024. On September 9, the Chennai Collector too wrote a separate letter calling upon the MRC to surrender possession of the buildings within 15 days.

The Collector permitted the club to use even the paddock area, for training the horses, only for a period of 15 days. Since the MRC had received the Collector’s letter only on September 10 and the 15-day breathing period would come to an end on September 24, there was a dire urgency to file the civil suit without serving a two-month-long pre-suit notice on the government, Mr. Pandian argued.

Published - September 19, 2024 12:47 pm IST