Report No. 138

3. Objectives of the Central Act of 1956: aspect of alternative accommodation.-

It would appear that the Supreme Court, in one of the Cases decided under the Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1956, had occasion to deal with the objectives of the Act of 1956 in these terms1:-

"The Act, no doubt, looks at the problem not from the point of view of the landlord, his needs, the money he had sunk in the house and the possible profit that he might make if the house were either let to other tenants or was reconstructed and let out, but rather from the point of view of the tenants who have no alternative accommodation and who would be stranded in this open if an order for eviction were passed. The Act itself contemplates eviction in cases where on the ground of the house being unfit for human habitation it has to be demolished (and) would seem to suggest that the slum dweller should not be evicted unless alternative accommodation could be obtained for him".

1. Joyti Pershad v. Administrator for the Union Territory of Delhi, AIR 1961 SC 1602: (1962) 2 SCR 125.