The Bombay High Court recently refused to interfere with a Small Causes Appellate Court order that directed Mumbai’s iconic ice cream parlor K Rustam to deposit an interim monthly compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh pending appeal in a dispute over its premises owned by the Cricket Club of India. CCI).
Disposing of the CCI’s plea, the high court observed on December 16 that the said amount for interim compensation was “not so low as to warrant its interference.” The appeal court has also been instructed to speed up the hearing of K Rustam’s appeal.
The property, which has been the subject of suit since 1996, comprises 3,070 square feet and a mezzanine floor of 950 square feet.
The Rustam family-run ice cream shop, a favorite of many on Marine Drive known for its ice cream sandwiches, is eight decades old.
On 30 April 2022, the court ordered K Rustam in a minor case Evacuate its premisesDeciding the case with a decree in favor of his landlord, CCI. The CCI asked for the land leased to K Rustam for its activities and stated that the membership list had multiplied and the club needed more space to open a coffee shop on the premises.
However, while hearing K Rustam’s appeal, on June 30, 2022, the Court of Small Causes stayed the order directing K Rustam to vacate his premises in the North Stand Building, a part of the Brabourne Stadium. two months Until the final decision of the appeal, K Rustam & Company has been placed on a condition that they should pay Rs 2.5 lakh per month to the court by the 10th of every month.
K Rustam has also been directed to deposit Rs 527 per month towards rent till the appeal is decided. The Court of Appeal made its interim stay order absolute in February 2023.
Aggrieved by the quantum of interim compensation fixed by the Appellate Court as a precondition for staying the execution of the decree, the CCI had approached the Bombay High Court last year.
Advocate Vivek Kantawala, representing the CCI, on December 16 asked a single-judge bench of Justice Sandeep V Marne to reconsider the quantum of interim compensation as the appellate court had ignored comparable precedents cited by the petitioner.
Justice Marne noted that the CCI’s case was decided on April 30, 2022, ‘on the sole basis of the genuine need of the plaintiff-club’ and an appeal was likely to be taken up for decision.
“The interim compensation amount is Rs. 2,50,000/- cannot be regarded as such as to warrant interference by this Court in the exercise of extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution. “The Court of Appeal may instead be requested to expedite the hearing of the appeal, rather than remand the appeal for reconsideration as requested,” Justice Marne noted.
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