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Friday, February 28, 2020

woes of owner - vacating tenant - social activism

India squeezed past an error-prone New Zealand into the Twenty20 World Cup semi-finals and probable tournament favouritism, after Shafali Verma added to her tournament highlight reel and and then Harmanpreet Kaur marshalled her bowlers to suffocating effect at the Junction Oval in Melbourne.
           Perhaps getting vacant possession of one’s own land is one of most arduous jobs !!

                           Oamaru is the largest town in North Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand, it is the main town in the Waitaki District.  The owners of an Oamaru rental property in which the tenants fell behind in rent are frustrated at how difficult it has been to remove them. Leanne and Adrian Tuffley own the property on Kingslea St, Oamaru through their company Tuffley Developments. They bought the four-bedroom house with the intention to demolish it and build townhouses.  A few months back they issued notice to their tenants to vacate, but they refused.  They had to go to Tribunal to get possession. 

May be the NZ case was simple - when it comes to the relationship between a property owner and a tenant, it's best to be safe than sorry. Hasty decisions, cutting corners, lack of written agreement  and blindly trusting brokers are the reasons for many a legal battle waged by landowners against rogue tenants. Even having a well-drafted lease / tenancy agreement may not be worth the paper.  A tenant, has not paid rent for couple of years- meantime the owner with whom the rental agreement passed away – when the widowed wife sought possession, the tenant says – the agreement was not made with her and hence not valid; they would vacate in a couple of years when their ward completes education ie., on their own terms, abuses and threatens the owner – whom would you support ? – besides making up your position, remember that the tenant is a ‘social activist’ – who day in and day out fights against the Govt telling people that things are not alright !!

Decades ago, Marx propagated that the central problem was that there is a class of people who have no property and are thus forced to labor for a living.  Then there’s another class of people who own the productive capital. These people don’t have to engage in productive labor; they can command the labor of others.  They essentially compel other people to labor for them and then appropriate much of the wealth that is produced as their own property.

In  1917, revolution exploded in Russia. Workers, soldiers and peasants established soviets (councils), the monarchy fell and a provisional government convoked pending the election of a constituent assembly. In April of that year, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik faction of socialists in Russia and known for his profound and controversial expansions of Marxism, was allowed to cross Germany to return to his country from exile in Switzerland. Lenin  proposed that the social revolution would require the leadership of a vanguard party of class-conscious revolutionaries from the educated and politically active part of the population.

Claude Henri de Rouvroy,  was a French political and economic theorist and businessman whose thought played a substantial role in influencing politics, economics, sociology and the philosophy of science. He created a political and economic ideology known as Saint-Simonianism that claimed that the needs of an industrial class, which he also referred to as the working class, needed to be recognized and fulfilled to have an effective society and an efficient economy. The word  'socialism' finds its root in the Latin sociare, which means to combine or to share.  Socialism is a political, social and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership  of the means of production and workers' self-management of enterprises. Now a days, we hear more about ‘social activist’ – who ? …  reportedly, Social activism is an intentional action with the goal of bringing about social change.

Now this activist often in news who was embroiled in ‘Pothys tree issuee’ has been a tenant since 2015 in a house  owned by couple N.N. Singh and Asha Kumari (53) of Kondappanaickenpatti. After the death of Mr. Singh, Asha Kumari moved to Bengaluru and is living with her son. Since the agreement between the owner and the tenant lapsed in 2019, Asha Kumari asked the activist to vacate the house to which he refused.

Social activist V Piyush Sethia alias Piyush Manush was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly attacking his house owner Asha Kumari (53), who claimed the attack was perpetrated after she questioned Manush for not vacating the house since 2018. She alleged Manush also failed to pay rent for last nine months. However, Manush’s wife Monika said they have paid the rent promptly, besides renovating the house at a cost of Rs 4 lakh. Monika alleged that Manush was arrested due to external pressure. Ever since her husband’s death in 2018,  the house owner has been asking Manush to vacate the house as she wanted to move to Salem. But the latter had allegedly denied doing so, police said.

“On Monday, Kumari, along with her daughter Akhansha and son-in-law Chandan Kumar, went to the house and asked Manush to vacate the house. A quarrel broke out and Manush allegedly pushed down Kumari, who claimed to have sustained injuries in her hand. On information, Kannankurichi police reached the spot and pacified both sides,” the police said.

Social activism – can fight against Govt alleging wrong in everything be it roads, nature, projects and more – can also refuse to pay rent, refuse to vacate house ! – real face !!

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
28.2.2020.

1 comment:

  1. Refusal to vacate by tenant is a very common problem and the tenant need not be an activist at all. Just a bit of arrogance is enough agreements not withstanding. It took us seven years about in court and we finally managed an settlement outside court !

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