It is one of Mumbai’s most coveted addresses where some of the wealthiest reside, but thanks to Thursday’s Bombay high court (HC) ruling, a popular film and television personality of the 1990s who lives here, will pay a monthly rent for her swanky apartment equivalent to a couple of cups of artisanal coffee.
Maya Alagh will continue to pay around ₹805 every month (with an annual 4% hike and society charges) for her 12th floor apartment in IL Palazzo, Malabar Hill, after HC dismissed a plea filed by her landlord, Britannia Industries Ltd, seeking to fix the monthly rent at ₹6 lakh.
A single judge bench of justice Sandeep Marne on Thursday upheld the February 21, 2019, order passed by the appellate bench of the Small Causes Court.
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Maya’s husband Sunil Alagh worked for Britannia Industries, a well-known biscuit manufacturer in India. He started his career as in the company as group product manager in December 1974 and became its managing director in March 1989. In May that year, the company decided to shift its headquarters from Mumbai to Bengaluru. Sunil Alagh moved to the new place, but his wife Maya, who was a leading advertising model and actress at the time, stayed back in the city with their two minor daughters. The Alaghs were the toast of Mumbai high society at the time. Sunil retired from the company in 2004.
Initially, the company provided a flat in Navroze Apartments, at Bhulabhai Desai Road, to Alagh’s wife and children, and after a round of litigation over rent, in July 1995, offered her the flat in Il Pallazo for a monthly rent of ₹805 with additional society charges. She shifted to the new place in August 1995.
However, 10 years later, the company filed a suit in the Small Causes Court, seeking rent of ₹2,75,000 per month. Maya countered that with a plea before the same court for fixing the standard rent and on her plea, a single judge bench of the court had in 2017 fixed it at ₹10,880 per month.
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This was not agreeable to either side; and both Maya and Britannia Industries approached the appellate bench of the Small Causes Court, asking for course correction. The appellate bench on February 21, 2019, dismissed the company’s appeal and allowed the appeal filed by Maya and reduced the standard rent to ₹805 per month along with the 4% annual increase and leviable charges like taxes and maintenance.
Britannia Industries then approached HC in 2019 challenging the appellate bench’s order on various grounds — the most crucial one being, the Small Causes Court does not have the authority to fix a standard rent of a space let out after October 1, 1987, the date fixed in the Maharashtra Rent Control (MRC) Act, 1999. The company’s counsel also argued that the 1999 enactment does not allow changing a standard rent for a property after a specified date.
Justice Marne, however, rejected the argument and held while the MRC Act does not allow standardising rent for tenancies created after October 1, 1987, the relevant provisions of the earlier Bombay Rent Act would govern these tenancies, and the contractual rent agreed between the parties – ₹805, in Maya’s case — would be the standard rent.
The court said: “There is no legislative fixation or determination of standard rent under Section 7(14)(b)(ii) of the MRC Act in respect of the premises let after 1 October 1987.”
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