Allahabad HC Strikes Down Key Sections of UP Tenancy Act 2021 for Lack of Presidential Assent

A Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court has declared Sections 8, 9, 10, 38 and 42 of the UP Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021 ultra vires, holding them repugnant to the Transfer of Property Act and the Provincial Small Causes Courts Act without Presidential assent.

A Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court, comprising Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Swarupama Chaturvedi, on 21 August 2026 struck down Sections 8, 9, 10, 38 and 42 of the U.P. Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021 (U.P. Act No. 16 of 2021) as ultra vires the Constitution. The court found those provisions repugnant to the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 and the Provincial Small Causes Courts Act, 1887 read with the U.P. Civil Laws (Amendment) Act, 1972, and held that the State legislature could not override those central and pre-existing laws without first obtaining Presidential assent under Article 254(2) of the Constitution. As a direct consequence, the court declared that the earlier U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 — which the 2021 Act had repealed — springs back into force.

The Batch of Petitions and the Dispute Before the Court

The proceedings consolidated sixteen writ petitions, principally from Agra and Farrukhabad, in which tenants challenged the 2021 Act itself and individual rent-revision and eviction orders passed under it. The lead matter, Inder Bhushan Sawhney v. Kanchan Kumari Jain (Dead), arose from a lease over two plots at Raja ki Mandi, MG Road crossing, Agra, originally granted by the Municipal Corporation, Agra, on 14 April 1947 for thirty years with an extension clause. The lessee built a market on the land. After a family settlement and lease renewals, a suit for eviction and recovery of arrears was filed on 19 April 2008 by the predecessor of the respondent-landlord.

The 2021 Act came into force on 24 August 2021 during the pendency of those proceedings. On 4 February 2022, the landlady applied under Section 10(4) of the 2021 Act for fixation of provisional rent. The Rent Authority passed an ex-parte order on 22 July 2022 revising the petitioner-tenant's rent to Rs 750 per square foot per month from a pre-existing monthly rent of Rs 1,000. A subsequent order dated 27 May 2024 reiterated that revision. Those orders, and similar orders in the companion petitions, were the immediate subject of challenge.

The earlier bench hearing the batch passed an order of recusal. The matter was then nominated to the present bench by the Chief Justice, and was heard on a priority basis given the constitutional challenge to the 2021 Act.

The Legal Issue: Legislative Competence and Repugnancy

The 2021 Act replaced the 1972 Act by repealing it under Section 46. Section 42 of the 2021 Act gave it overriding effect over all other laws of the State of Uttar Pradesh then in force. The core constitutional question was whether the State legislature had the competence to enact a law that effectively overrides the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 and the Provincial Small Causes Courts Act, 1887 — both Parliamentary or pre-constitutional enactments referable to the Concurrent List — without obtaining Presidential assent under Article 254(2).

Senior Advocate Shashi Nandan, appearing for the petitioners, argued on two planes. First, the 2021 Act is repugnant in substantive law to the TPA, which governs leases of non-agricultural property under Chapter V (Sections 105 to 116). Second, it is repugnant in procedural law to the SCC Act read with the Civil Laws Act, which was itself enacted with prior Presidential assent and created the forum of the Small Causes Courts for adjudication of landlord-tenant disputes. The 1972 Repealed Act could gain overriding effect over the TPA only because it had received Presidential assent; the 2021 Act has no such assent. Section 42's attempt to override those Parliamentary and pre-existing laws without that constitutional step renders the Act void to that extent.

Additionally, on the validity of Sections 9 and 10 specifically, counsel argued that reading Section 10 in isolation creates uncanalised and unbridled discretion in the Rent Authority to determine rent at “prevailing market value” without the constraints in Sections 8 and 9.

The State, through the Additional Advocate General, countered that the later five-judge bench decision of the Supreme Court in Rajendra Diwan v. Pradeep Kumar Ranibala, 2019 SCC OnLine SC 1586, recognised Entry 18 of the State List as a source of legislative competence for rent control legislation, making Presidential assent unnecessary. Senior Advocate Ashish Kumar Singh, for the landlords, contended that Section 106 of the TPA itself operates only in the absence of a contract or local law to the contrary, so there is no repugnancy once the local law exists in the shape of the 2021 Act. The State also argued that if the 2021 Act were struck down, the 1972 Act would revive.

How the Bench Reasoned

The court first addressed the apparent tension between two co-equal five-judge bench decisions of the Supreme Court: Indu Bhushan Bose v. Rama Sundari Devi, (1969) 2 SCC 289, and Rajendra Diwan. The bench held, after detailed analysis, that there is no direct conflict between the two.

Indu Bhushan Bose, as clarified by the two-judge bench in Accountant and Secretarial Services Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India, (1988) 4 SCC 324, established that legislation governing the relationship of landlord and tenant in respect of houses and buildings is referable not to Entry 18 of List II of the Seventh Schedule but to Entries 6, 7 and 13 of List III (the Concurrent List). The bench accepted that position.

Rajendra Diwan, the court found, was decided in a wholly different context. The only question framed by the Supreme Court there was whether Section 13(2) of the Chhattisgarh Rent Control Act — which provided for a direct appeal to the Supreme Court against orders of the Rent Control Tribunal — was ultra vires for want of legislative competence. The Supreme Court answered that question by reference to Entry 77 of List I and Entry 65 of List II, holding that a State legislature cannot confer appellate jurisdiction upon the Supreme Court. The observations in Rajendra Diwan about Entry 18 of List II arose only in the context of Article 323B and the power to constitute Tribunals — not in the context of whether the State could legislate on transfer of non-agricultural property in a manner repugnant to a Parliamentary law. Entry 6 of List III and the issue of Article 254 repugnancy were not considered in Rajendra Diwan at all. The bench therefore concluded that the ratio of Indu Bhushan Bose on the Entry question remains good law and is not displaced.

The court then examined the substantive repugnancy between the 2021 Act and the TPA. Under the TPA, there is no provision allowing a lessor to revise lease rent outside the written terms agreed between the parties. The 2021 Act's Chapter III introduces statutory rent revision and determination machinery — Sections 8, 9 and 10 — that operates independently of whatever the parties may have agreed. That is a direct conflict. On eviction, Section 111 of the TPA exhaustively lists the modes of determination of a lease (efflux of time, surrender, forfeiture, and so on). Section 21(2) of the 2021 Act introduces entirely new statutory grounds for eviction — non-payment of rent, misuse, requirement for repair, change in land use, self-occupation by legal heirs, penal rent on holding over — none of which arise from the framework of Section 111 of the TPA. The court found these provisions irreconcilable with the TPA scheme.

The procedural repugnancy was described as “even more pronounced.” The SCC Act read with the Civil Laws Act created a specific forum — the Small Causes Courts — for adjudication of landlord-tenant disputes. The 2021 Act substitutes the Rent Authority as the adjudicatory body. Section 38 of the 2021 Act transfers jurisdiction away from that forum; Section 42 purports to override all other State law. Since both the TPA and the SCC Act as amended by the Civil Laws Act are referable to List III, overriding them requires Presidential assent. The 2021 Act has none.

The court contrasted the position under the Tamil Nadu Regulation of Rights and Responsibilities of Landlords and Tenants Act, which contained a proviso to Section 33 directing the Rent Court to apply the TPA and other substantive law as a Civil Court would. That provision allowed the Madras High Court, in Balaji v. Principal Secretary, Writ Petition No. 3985 of 2020, decided on 23 April 2024, to hold the Tamil Nadu Act free of repugnancy. The Allahabad bench distinguished that decision on the basis that no comparable provision exists in the 2021 UP Act. Section 42 of the 2021 Act moves in the opposite direction, asserting override over all inconsistent State laws.

The court also applied the doctrine of severability, drawing on R.M.D. Chamarbaugwalla v. Union of India, (1957) 1 SCC 650, and declined to strike down the entire 2021 Act. Only those provisions creating direct repugnancy with the constitutional scheme — Sections 8, 9, 10, 38 and 42 — were declared ultra vires. The rest of the Act, to the extent not directly conflicting, was left untouched.

On the revival of the 1972 Act, the court accepted the State's submission, relying on the nine-judge bench decision in Property Owners Association v. State of Maharashtra, (2024) 18 SCC 1, and the three-judge bench decision in State of Tamil Nadu v. K. Shyam Sunder, (2011) 8 SCC 737. Where an amending or replacing legislation is struck down, the original legislation revives. Since Section 46 of the 2021 Act (the repealing provision) is itself part of an ultra vires enactment, the 1972 Act springs back into life to prevent a legal vacuum.

The Individual Orders and the Savings Clause

The declaration of ultra vires was made prospectively from 21 August 2026. Proceedings already concluded under the 2021 Act without any challenge having been raised to the validity of its provisions — including rent agreements executed, rent revised, or rent determined — are expressly saved. Those revised terms and conditions continue to govern the substantive rights of the parties in those cases, and will be enforceable going forward under the provisions of the 1972 Act and the TPA read with the SCC Act and the Civil Laws Act, as the case may be, with effect from 22 August 2026.

The individual orders impugned in each writ petition — detailed in a table in paragraph 2 of the judgment and including, in the lead matter, the Rent Authority orders dated 22 July 2022 and 27 May 2024 fixing provisional rent at Rs 750 per square foot per month — are quashed.

Order

The court allowed all sixteen writ petitions. Sections 8, 9, 10, 38 and 42 of the U.P. Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021 (U.P. Act No. 16 of 2021) are declared ultra vires with effect from 21 August 2026. The U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 stands revived. All concluded proceedings not previously challenged remain protected and enforceable under the 1972 Act and TPA read with the SCC Act and the Civil Laws Act from 22 August 2026. There is no order as to costs.