30 years later, lensman’s kin reclaim Bandra flat

MUMBAI: The family of award-winning cinematographer of yesteryears, Kamal Bose, got a reprieve from the Supreme Court in a 30-year-old dispute to evict a tenant from their Bandra (W), flat. The SC dismissed a special leave petition (SLP), thus confirming the appointment of a court receiver, as directed by the Bombay HC last year.
The receiver will be appointed pending disposal of an appeal filed in 2005 by Bose’s widow against a small causes court order.The Bose family can then occupy the flat as agents of the court receiver.
Known for his work in the legendary Bimal Roy’s films ‘Do Bigha Zameen’, ‘Parineeta’ and ‘Bandini’, Bose was the five-time winner of the Filmfare award for best cinematography till his death in 1995. In August 1987, he had filed an eviction suit in the small causes court here against S C Ghosh, who occupied his flat at Mayfair-B as his ‘former’ licensee. Ghosh had a month earlier filed a suit to be declared a lawful tenant and for fixation of standard rent. Bose had given his flat to Ghosh on leave and licence in 1978.
After almost 17 years and a trial later, the small causes court which decided landlord-tenant disputes ruled in Bose’s favour. It held that S C Ghosh was not a tenant and directed him to hand over the flat to Bose. But the appeal bench of the small causes court reversed the eviction order. As Bose expired pending his victory in the small causes court, his widow Satadal and his children, Parag, Palash and Papri, continued the legal battle. Following Ghosh’s death, his widow, who continued to reside in the flat, carried the battle forward. She expired last year, and her sons, Swapan and Debasis, are caught in the legal duel with Bose’s children.
Satadal and her children moved the HC in 2005 to challenge the reversal of the eviction order. Last year, over a decade later, through their counsel, Nusrat Shah, the Boses applied for appointment of a court receiver and to be allowed to occupy the flat, or an expedited hearing. Shah said the original agreement, for 11 months, was never renewed. Besides, he argued that the Bose family’s Juhu residence would be going in for redevelopment, and they would be forced to live on rent when the family’s Bandra flat was vacant, as Ghosh’s two sons were residing elsewhere; Swapan was in the US and Debasis in Vakola, Santa Cruz.
In the HC, Ardeshir Vakil, counsel for Debasis, opposed the appointment of a receiver, saying it would mean “allowing the petition’’. He said Debasis has renovated and “regularly visits’’ the Bandra flat. The Vakola house was in his wife’s name.
In the SLP, for permission to challenge the HC order, Ghosh said the HC order amounted to dispossessing him, even though there was no final order to evict him. He said the HC ought to have considered expediting the matter as senior citizens Bose’s widow is in her 80s are involved. Besides, the Bose family gave no details of the “proposed redevelopment’’, he said, and added, “serious questions of law of public importance are raised whether inherited tenancy rights can be done away with without an eviction order on merits.’’
Justice Nitin Jamdar of the HC had said the matter could not be taken out of turn as two-decade-old petitions filed in 1996 were now up for final hearing. To Justice Jamdar’s query, Vakil admitted that there was neither any matrimonial strain nor any case filed between Debasis and his wife. Debasis had in 2009 moved the HC for “deletion’’ of his name, saying he was “not interested’’ in the Bandra flat. In 2016, he said that plea was only made as his mother feared she may be dispossessed, a reason, the HC found “unbelievable’’ as “only the landlord could have taken steps to disposses her’’.
Ghosh’s claims that the Bose family had other premises were without specifics, the HC said. As interim orders, the HC in December 2009 “looked at equities of both parties’’ and held that Ghosh “would suffer no prejudice if the landlord is allowed to occupy the premises as an agent of the court receiver during pendency of the petition’’.
Last month, an SC bench of Dipak Misra and R Banumathi, after hearing senior counsel K V Vishwanathan for Ghosh and Nusrat Shah and Samaa Shah for Bose, dismissed the SLP in a one-line order.