IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH AT
SHIMLA
CMPMO No.695 of 2023
Decided on 16th December 2025
.
The Chief Executive Officer, Cantonment Board, Kasauli
...Petitioner
Versus
Parveen Kumar
...Respondent
Coram
of
Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ajay Mohan Goel, Judge
Whether approved for reporting?
For the petitioner:
rt Mr. P.S. Goverdhan, Senior Advocate,
with Mr. Rakesh Thakur, Advocate.
For the respondent: M/s Mohinder Verma and Sumit
Sharma, Advocates.
Ajay Mohan Goel, Judge (Oral)
By way of this petition, the petitioner has prayed for
the following relief:-
"It is, therefore, very humbly prayed that
impugned order dated 14.08.2023 (Annexure P-1),
passed in case No.10-3/2022 titled as Chief
Executive Officer Cantonment Board versus
Parveen Kumar, by the learned Additional Chief
Judicial Magistrate Kasauli, may please be ordered
to be quashed and set aside and the Magistrate
may be directed to recovery the arrear of lease rent
in accordance with the mandate of Section 324 of
the Cantonment Act, 2006 and Sections 421 and
422 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in view of
the submissions made hereinabove, in the interest
of justice."
2. The petitioner is aggrieved by the order passed by
the Court of learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kasauli, in an
application filed by the petitioner under Section 324 of the
.
Cantonment Act, 2006, in terms whereof, the application of the
petitioner has been dismissed.
3. Brief facts necessary for the adjudication of this
petition are that the private respondent before this Court is
of
running a shop on rent which belongs to the petitioner.
Cantonment Board Kasauli vide CBR No.10 dated 11.05.2020
rt
resolved to exempt full lease rent of stall holder for lockdown
period w.e.f. 22.03.2020 to 17.05.2020. Later on, the Chief
Officer, Commanding in Chief issued direction to the
Cantonment Board, Kasauli on 11.05.2020 that exemption be
modified to the effect that instead of full exemption, the same
shall be exempted upto 50% of the rent from 22.03.220 to
17.05.2020.
4. Pursuant to the said direction of the Officer
concerned, Cantonment Board Kasauli on 13.07.2021 again
passed a resolution and granted exemption of 50% of rent from
22.03.2020 to 17.05.2020.
5. Thereafter, a notice was issued by the Cantonment
Board to the present respondent on 12.07.2021 for the
payment of arrears/rent.
.
6. As the needful was not done by the respondent, the
Cantonment Board filed an application under Section 324 of
the Cantonment Act to recover the said sum and in terms of the
impugned order; said application has been dismissed by the
of
learned Court below.
7. Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner argued
rt
that the impugned order is per se perverse. He submitted that
under Section 324 of the Cantonment Act, method of recovery
of arrears of rent etc., is provided and as the petitioner had
invoked this provision for the recovery of rent against the
respondent and as the rent was admittedly due from the
respondent to the petitioner, learned Court should have allowed
the application. However, rather than doing the same, it went
into the issue of the grant of exemption without having any
jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the same. Learned Senior
Counsel thus submitted that, as the impugned order was per se
without jurisdiction, the same was liable to be set aside on this
count.
8. On the other hand, learned counsel for the
respondent has supported the order passed by the learned Trial
.
Court and by referring to the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme
Court reported in AIR 1966 Supreme Court 108, titled
Cantonment Board versus Pyare Lal, he argued that the
arrears of rent due under a lease cannot be recovered by
of
invoking the provisions of Section 324 of the Act. Learned
counsel further submitted that the judgment of the Hon'ble
rt
Supreme Court was clear on this aspect of the matter and, in
fact, Section 259 of the Old Act, (The Cantonments Act, 1924),
was almost para materia with the provisions of Section 324 of
the 2006 Act. Learned counsel also referred to Annexures R-6
and R-7 and submitted that the authority concerned had
granted exemption in the cases of persons similarly situated as
the respondent and, therefore also, the order passed by the
learned Court calls for no interference. Accordingly, he prayed
that the present petition be dismissed.
9. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and
have also carefully gone through the order under challenge as
well as the pleadings on record.
10. A perusal of Section 324 of the Cantonment Act,
2006 demonstrates that this Section provides for method of
.
recovery of arrears of any tax or any other money recoverable
including rent on land or building due or damages and fine due
under lease or licences executed by or in favour of a Board or
the Defence Estates Officers under the 2006, Act. Section
of
324(2) provides that an application to a Judicial Magistrate
under Sub-section (1) shall be in writing and shall be signed by
rt
the President or Vice-President of the Board etc. and in terms
of Sub-section (3) thereof on receipt of an application, the
Judicial Magistrate referred to in Sub-section (1) may take
action for the recovery of the amount of tax, rent or money from
the person specified in the application.
11. A perusal of the impugned order demonstrates that
what weighed with the learned Judicial Magistrate while
dismissing the application of the petitioner was that once
Cantonment Board had taken a decision to exempt the full
lease rent for the lockdown period and the decision was taken
on humanitarian ground, the subsequent decision to roll back
from said decision and to compel the lessees and stall holders
to pay 50% of the rent arrears of aforesaid period was not
justified.
.
12. This Court is of the considered view that these
findings returned by the learned Judicial Magistrate are
perverse and are without jurisdiction. This Court is making this
observation for the reason that it is not as if an aggrieved
of
person had invoked the jurisdiction of the Judicial Magistrate
seeking a declaration that the subsequent decision of the
rt
Cantonment Board to roll back the concession from full to half
was bad in law. In fact, under Section 324, no such application
or petition otherwise could have been filed. It is a matter of
record that it was the Cantonment Board, which took the
decision initially to give full exemption, but, on the intervention
of the Superior Officer, the same was rolled down to 50%. This
order of Roll down was not assailed by anyone and is still
in force.
13. Besides this, it was not the case of the respondent
before the Judicial Magistrate, nor, it is the case of the
respondent before this Court, that the demand raised in the
application under Section 324 was beyond the subsisting
resolution of the Cantonment Board. Therefore, as the demand
was raised by the Cantonment Board in the light of the
.
subsequent resolution, which was passed to grant exemption to
the extent of 50% only, which resolution was not and has not
been assailed by anyone, there was no occasion for the
learned Judicial Magistrate to dismiss the application filed by
of
the Cantonment Board by holding that the roll back was bad.
Learned Judicial Magistrate erred in not appreciating that he
rt
was exercising limited jurisdiction under Section 324 of the
2006 Act.
14. Therefore, in light of this discussion, the petition
succeeds and the impugned order is set aside and learned
Judicial Magistrate is directed to decide the application of the
petitioner afresh in light of the observations made in this order.
Learned Judicial Magistrate shall decide the application on the
basis of the pleadings before it and the respondent herein is at
liberty to assist the Court in the course of the adjudication of the
application and all the judgments, which may be cited on behalf
of the respondent shall be referred to and taken into
consideration in the course of the adjudication of the
application.
15. Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, also
.
stand disposed of.
(Ajay Mohan Goel)
Judge
December 16, 2025
(Vinod)
of
rt
