New Delhi, Jun 19 The Delhi High Court has agreed to hear an appeal by the owners of the iconic Ambassador Hotel, Sir Sobha Singh and Sons Pvt Ltd, challenging an appellate court order that ruled in favour of the Centre in a property dispute.
Hearing the matter on Wednesday, Justice Tejas Karia issued notice on the company's application seeking interim relief and directed that the appeal be listed before the roster bench on July 23.
The dispute concerns the northern block of Sujan Singh Park, which includes the Ambassador Hotel. The Centre issued an eviction notice to the hotel on June 11 on the grounds of breach of lease conditions.
According to the plea filed by Sir Sobha Singh and Sons Pvt Ltd, a district judge (appellate court) on June 9 set aside a 2009 decision of a senior civil judge cum rent controller, which had held the legality of the property.
The plea also sought an immediate stay on the eviction notice.
According to the plea, the first appellate court has reversed a decree that stood for decades, displaced an injunction that had held since 1960, and unsettled possession that has run unbroken since 1943 (83 years).
"The government made a grant, took its benefit for the better part of a century, broke its own promise to execute the perpetual lease, and then sought to forfeit the grantee's possession by a stroke of the pen. A civil court, after 50 years of trial, held the government to its word," the plea said.
"The first appellate court has now undone that result not by weighing the evidence — there was none from the Union to weigh — but by misreading a judgment that said the opposite of what it was made to say, and by closing the doors of the only court open to the Appellant," it claimed.
