Bombay high court dismisses 2 former domestic help’s tenancy rights claim

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court recently dismissed a claim by two former domestic help of a tenant claiming tenancy rights. The HC said it was a well-settled legal position that persons who are not family members cannot claim tenancy rights. The HC said the couple appealing against a 2002 order that dubbed them as trespassers "miserably failed" to prove their claim of being the tenant's family.The HC bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Aarti Sathe thus directed them to vacate the flat at French Bridge in south Mumbai in eight weeks.The legal battle began in 1985 when the flat's owner filed a suit before the city civil court for removal of the domestics, calling them trespassers.The courts all along ruled in favour of the flat owner, who later passed on. The HC said the flat owners were right in their suit that the appellants were trespassers and had no legal right whatsoever to occupy the flat.The couple, through advocate Brijesh Upadhyay, though, contended they be considered members of the late tenant's family, as "son or foster son," and cited various rulings to back their case. The HC said, however, the "facts are clearly distinguishable" and the couple was permitted to reside in the flat only as domestic servants and to take care of the tenant, which was purely for his personal convenience.The HC agreed with submissions of senior counsel Sanjeev Gorwadkar for the flat owners that the domestic help attracts no protection under the Rent Act, "as he was not a member of the family of the tenant nor a legal heir".The HC also observed that since 1985, owners of the suit flat have been deprived of the property. The judges said, "The plea under the Rent Act cannot be stretched to such an extent, as in the present proceedings, so as to extinguish the rights of the landlord in the premises. Such is never the intention of a beneficial legislation like the Rent Act."
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