Case: Bhagwan Dass  Vs. Kamal Abrol

the place at which the person is residing in law. The latter form of residence may or may not be the actual residence or the place where the person actually stays or reside. A person holding property or land in a particular place or city or having some ancestral roots to the city may be a resident of that particular place in the legal sense, but his actual residence will be the place where he is presently residing and coupled with the fact of animus manedi or an intention to stay for a considerable period. The concept of de facto and de jure residence can also be understood by the following example. If a person suppose has the residency certificate of a place say A, but actually for his living he stays at the place B. Then de jure he can be said to be the resident of place A but de facto he is the resident of the place B. In U.O.I. v. Dudh Nath Mishra and Ors., AIR 2000 SC 525 Division Bench of this Court has held that the word resides has to be interpreted in the context of the purpose of the statute in which the words resides is used. The word resident is read with word ordinarily hence making the phrase ordinarily resident. It is clear that the person, before he can be said to be ordinarily residing at a particular place has to have an intention to stay at that place for a considerable length of time and it would not include a visit of a short or casual presence at that place. From the aforesaid analysis it is apparent that the word residence is generally understood as referring to a person in connection with the place where he lives, and may be defined as one who resides in a place or one who dwells in a place for a considerable period of time as distinguished from one who merely works in a certain locality or comes casually for a visit and the place of work or the place of casual visit are different from the place of residence. There are two classifications of the meaning of the word residence. First is in the form of permanent and temporary residence and the second classification is based on de facto and de jure residence. The de facto concept of residence can also be understood clearly by the meaning of the word residence as given in the Black Law Dictionary, 8th Edition. It is given that the word residence means bodily presence as an inhabitant in a given place. Thus de facto residence is also to be understood as the place where one regularly resides as different to the places where he is connected to by mere ancestral connections or political connections or connection by marriage. In the present case, the necessary eligibility criterion requires the applicant to be a resident of Kangra district. 10. The advertisement inviting the applications has not defined the same and hence it would be necessary to see the intention of the framers of the eligibility criteria to understand the true meaning or the sense for which the word resident is used or as to why the criteria of resident is put as an eligibility criteria for allotment of LPG. In the present case the intention of the framers appears to be to provide employment or source of earning for the residents of the Kangra district in the form of LPG dealership/distributorship. The eligibility criterion requires the person to be a resident of Kangra district only in the actual sense and not in any other sense. What is required to fulfill the eligibility criteria of the residence is that the person should be a de facto residence and not to have the mere connection with the place on account of her husband having some personal and ancestral property in Kangra. There is no finding recorded by the Court that the husband of Respondent No.1 is permanently residing at Kangra or has permanent abode in Kangra. From the finding arrived at by the High Court it can be said that her husband having ancestral property in Kangra is a visitor to that place and occasionally resides there for a few days. Respondent No.1 prima facie appears to be a permanent resident of Mandi, since her name appears in the voters list of Mandi and that she has been drawing her ration from Mandi as per the case set up by the appellants. It is further clear that the intention of providing employment and source of earning to the residents of the place would be fulfilled only if the person is actually living in Kangra and not by his/her remote connection to the place. It may also be seen that another eligibility criteria is that the person should not be a partner or having any dealership or distributorship agency in any petroleum company and, therefore, the dealership/distributorship has to be allotted to the person who does not hold any other dealership/distributorship agency of any other petroleum company. This term indicates that the corporation wants that the dealership at a particular place have to be handled by that person, which would necessarily require the personal presence of that person at the place of business. The notice of intent issued to the respondent no.1 on March 3, 1988 further clarifies this requirement when it says that the dealer is to be a full time working dealer which necessitates the permanent residence at a place for which the dealership license is given. When the agency requires full time working dealer it would be only possible if the person actually resides in Kangra district and not working through agent or servants engaged for the said purpose. This further indicates that the dealer is required to be a de facto resident of the place from where the dealership license is to be issued and it is not permissible to have casual connection or temporary residence at that place.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 1

Explanation:
1[ds]9. The court has further said in paragraph 13 that it is plain in the context of clause (ii) of Section 19 of the Act, that the word resides meant actual place of residence and not a legal or constructive residence. It clearly does not indicate the place of origin.10. The advertisement inviting the applications has not defined the same and hence it would be necessary to see the intention of the framers of the eligibility criteria to understand the true meaning or the sense for which the word resident is used or as to why the criteria of resident is put as an eligibility criteria for allotment of LPG. In the present case the intention of the framers appears to be to provide employment or source of earning for the residents of the Kangra district in the form of LPG dealership/distributorship. The eligibility criterion requires the person to be a resident of Kangra district only in the actual sense and not in any other sense. What is required to fulfill the eligibility criteria of the residence is that the person should be a de facto residence and not to have the mere connection with the place on account of her husband having some personal and ancestral property in Kangra. There is no finding recorded by the Court that the husband of Respondent No.1 is permanently residing at Kangra or has permanent abode in Kangra. From the finding arrived at by the High Court it can be said that her husband having ancestral property in Kangra is a visitor to that place and occasionally resides there for a few days. Respondent No.1 prima facie appears to be a permanent resident of Mandi, since her name appears in the voters list of Mandi and that she has been drawing her ration from Mandi as per the case set up by the appellants. It is further clear that the intention of providing employment and source of earning to the residents of the place would be fulfilled only if the person is actually living in Kangra and not by his/her remote connection to the place. It may also be seen that another eligibility criteria is that the person should not be a partner or having any dealership or distributorship agency in any petroleum company and, therefore, the dealership/distributorship has to be allotted to the person who does not hold any other dealership/distributorship agency of any other petroleum company. This term indicates that the corporation wants that the dealership at a particular place have to be handled by that person, which would necessarily require the personal presence of that person at the place of business. The notice of intent issued to the respondent no.1 on March 3, 1988 further clarifies this requirement when it says that the dealer is to be a full time working dealer which necessitates the permanent residence at a place for which the dealership license is given. When the agency requires full time working dealer it would be only possible if the person actually resides in Kangra district and not working through agent or servants engaged for the said purpose. This further indicates that the dealer is required to be a de facto resident of the place from where the dealership license is to be issued and it is not permissible to have casual connection or temporary residence at that placeThe word resident is in common usage and many definitions were attributed to it in different decisions. Nevertheless, it is difficult to give an exact definition for the term is flexible, elastic and somewhat ambiguous. The meaning of the word resident in itself creates certain doubts. It does not have any technical meaning and no fixed meaning, would be applicable in all the facts and circumstances. It is used in various senses and has received various interpretations by the Courts. Generally, the construction of the term is governed by the connection in which it is used and it is dependent on the context of the subject matter, and the object, the purpose or result designed to be accompanied by its use, and the meaning has to be adduced from the facts and circumstances taken together in each particular case. The word resident as defined in Oxford Dictionary isto dwell permanently or for considerable time, to have ones stay or usual abode, to live in or at a particular place. Similarly, the Websters Dictionary has defined it asto dwell permanently and for any length of time and words like dwelling place or abode are held to be synonymous. From the above it can be seen that the term residence makes it clear that the word residents includes two types which are: 1) a permanent residence and 2) a temporary residence. First type of residence form all the permanent dwelling which means that the person has settled down at a particular place permanently and regularly for some purpose. The second type refers to a situation that the person is not residing at a place forever but residing at a place for a temporary period or not for a considerable length of time. This is also referred to a temporary living in a place. Hence, in one place the word residence is interpreted in the strict sense to include only permanent living at a place which may be referred to a domicile and in the second place the word is interpreted flexible sense to show a temporary or tentative residence. The concept of residence has obtained varied judicial opinions and responses. To start with, in the case of Sarat Chandra Basu v. Bijoy Chand Mahatab Maharajadhiraj Bahadur of Burdwan, AIR 1937 PC 46 , the Privy Council while dealing with the word resides as it occurs in Section 33 of the Registration Act, 1908 has observed that:the expression resides as used in Section 33 is not defined in the statute, but there is no reason for assuming that it contemplates only permanent residence and excludes temporary residence7. The decision of the Privy Council was quoted with approval and followed by the Supreme Court in the case of Sri Sri Sri Kishore Chandra Singh v. Babu Ganesh Prasad Bhagat and Ors, AIR 1954 SC 316 . The Supreme Court later on in the decision Mst. Jagir Kaur and another v. Jaswant Singh AIR 1963 SC 150 has defined the word resides in the following manner: a person resides in a place if through choice make it his abode permanently or even temporarily9. The court has further said in paragraph 13 that it is plain in the context of clause (ii) of Section 19 of the Act, that the word resides meant actual place of residence and not a legal or constructive residence. It clearly does not indicate the place of origin.The words residence is flexible and has many shades of meaning but it must take its colour and content from the context in which it appears and it cannot be read in isolation. By this decision another dimension was added to the concept of residence in the form of concept of de facto residence and the concept of de jure residence. The Supreme Court in this case has clearly distinguished between the concept of actual residence or de facto residence and legal residence or de j ure residence. The actual residence means the place where the person is residing actually at a given point of time. On the other hand concept of de jure residence or the legal residence means the place at which the person is residing in law. The latter form of residence may or may not be the actual residence or the place where the person actually stays or reside. A person holding property or land in a particular place or city or having some ancestral roots to the city may be a resident of that particular place in the legal sense, but his actual residence will be the place where he is presently residing and coupled with the fact of animus manedi or an intention to stay for a considerable period. The concept of de facto and de jure residence can also be understood by the following example. If a person suppose has the residency certificate of a place say A, but actually for his living he stays at the place B. Then de jure he can be said to be the resident of place A but de facto he is the resident of the place B. In U.O.I. v. Dudh Nath Mishra and Ors., AIR 2000 SC 525 Division Bench of this Court has held that the word resides has to be interpreted in the context of the purpose of the statute in which the words resides is used. The word resident is read with word ordinarily hence making the phrase ordinarily resident. It is clear that the person, before he can be said to be ordinarily residing at a particular place has to have an intention to stay at that place for a considerable length of time and it would not include a visit of a short or casual presence at that place. From the aforesaid analysis it is apparent that the word residence is generally understood as referring to a person in connection with the place where he lives, and may be defined as one who resides in a place or one who dwells in a place for a considerable period of time as distinguished from one who merely works in a certain locality or comes casually for a visit and the place of work or the place of casual visit are different from the place of residence. There are two classifications of the meaning of the word residence. First is in the form of permanent and temporary residence and the second classification is based on de facto and de jure residence. The de facto concept of residence can also be understood clearly by the meaning of the word residence as given in the Black Law Dictionary, 8th Edition. It is given that the word residence means bodily presence as an inhabitant in a given place. Thus de facto residence is also to be understood as the place where one regularly resides as different to the places where he is connected to by mere ancestral connections or political connections or connection by marriage. In the present case, the necessary eligibility criterion requires the applicant to be a resident of Kangra district.