IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.5290 of 2007 1. M/S MD.SHAFI AHMED through Partner Md. Nezamuddin son of late Md. Shafi, Mohalla – M P Bagh, P S – AraTown, District – Bhojpur. 2. M/S. Shama & Company through its Proprietor Md. Gayasuddin son of late Md. Gaffur, Mohalla – Rahat Bind Tolas, P.S. Ara Town, District – Bhojpur. 3. M/S. Chand & Company through its Partner Md. Ismail son of late Md. Israfil, Mohalla - Bhalubipur, P.S. Ara Town, District – Bhojpur. 4. M/S. Ainul Haque & Company through its Partner Md. Sattar son of Md Abdul Gaffar, Mohalla – Chaudhriana, P S – Ara Town, District – Bhojpur. All having shops in Bazar Samiti Area, Ara, P S – Nawadah, District – Bhojpur (Arrah). Versus 1. THE STATE OF BIHAR 2. The Sub Divisional Officer, Sadar Arrah, cum Special Officer, Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee, Arrah. 3. Bihar State Agricultural Produce Marketing Board, Patna. ----------- For the petitioners : M/s. Sadaquat Husain and C K Prasad. For the respondent Board : Mr. B K Singh Chauhan. For the State : Mr. Manoj Kumar Sinha, AC to GP I ----- 05. 25.03.2010 All these petitioners are admittedly tenants of the erstwhile Marketing Board. They are in occupation of different shops cum storage space allotted to them by virtue of decision dated 6.1.1988 contained in Annexure-1. They are before this Court now when notices contained in Annexure-5 series dated 22.11.2006 have come to be issued to them. By virtue of these notices certain claim for arrears of rent has been demanded from the petitioners, which has been termed arbitrary, irrational or contrary to actual state of affairs in the present writ application. Submission is that arrears of rent from the period 1.1.1988 till 31.3.2006 is a misplaced kind of demand because 2 petitioners have been paying rent earlier. Some payments have been made by them but a fanciful figure has been worked out creating liability even for the period when there could be a kind of bar on realization of arrears of rents by efflux of time. It has been urged on behalf of the petitioners that effort on the part of the respondents to realize rents from the back date and from the date of revision also makes the demand vulnerable. Stand of the respondents on the other hand is that the erstwhile Marketing Board categorized the various markets under four categories. They were listed as Category A to D. The rentals have been fixed depending upon the category of market. These rents when fixed and communicated begot certain resistance and objections from various tenants who were operating out of those market yards. The revision proposed was found to be on the higher side and therefore yet another decision by the Board was taken and rentals were lowered down to a more reasonable figure. In the present case which relates to Ara, the rental was Rs.3 which the Board decided to reduce to Rs.1.25. It is the stand of the respondents that even this revised amount was not being paid by the petitioners for a long period of time but some adhoc payments have been made. This non-payment became the subject matter of audit objection by the Controller and Auditor General. The loss of revenue by the State was pointed out and it was based on this audit objection that the 3 notices contained in Annexure-5 series have come to be issued. There is nothing arbitrary or irrational. Effort is only to collect the outstanding rents pending against the petitioners who have an obligation as tenants to pay rents for the occupation of the premises in question. In the totality of the above submissions and statements even though an impression was sought to be created by the petitioners that the revision of rent is being sought to be enforced from an earlier date, the fact is that the revision is being sought to be enforced from the date the rents were due and on the amount which was subsequently reduced by the marketing board on a decision passed by the Board of Directors. Obviously all is not well in the matter of enforcement and collection of rent outstanding against the petitioners. What payments have been made by the petitioners against annexure-5 series or something more is due is a matter of accounting. If the petitioners have made payments, all that will be credited to the account of the petitioner on due verification and if the payment has not been made in terms of the rental which has been fixed after due revision in the downward fashion, they have an obligation to pay the same. They may approach the respondent authorities with all evidence in support of payment and the payment will be reconciled . If there is balance of payment it is the obligation on the petitioners to pay the same. If the balance is not paid respondents have freedom 4 to act in accordance with law. The writ application stands disposed of with the above liberty to the petitioners. rkp ( Ajay Kumar Tripathi, J )