We have rented a commercial office space in Okhla Industrial Area, Phase 1 on the second floor of the building whose lease agreement came into being on 1st September 2013. We signed the lease agreement for 9 years, with a 2 year lock in period (implying that neither can we be evicted and nor can the landlord evict us in that period) At the time that we rented the premises, it was completely bare shell. We told the manager of the building (since the owner was never in town, he placed a manager in the building to manage affairs on his behalf) that we would need to do alot of construction to make the space fit for commercial use. He consented. We got the bathrooms made, the kitchen made, the partitions made, the floor re-cemented, electrical wiring, painting etc. So in essence we have rebuilt the entire space. We invested 30 Lacs in it.
Since our sector is IT, we have many computers in our office and one server. Since the office premises is at 2nd floor there is a lot of open terrace area, which leaves us exposed to heat and rain. Both heat and rain are neither good for the computers nor the server as it is always prone to catching fire or short circuiting. So this year in june, we decided to construct a temporary tensile structure (Tensile structure) to protect us from the same. We have rented out the entire space including the terrace area so we deduced that we were well in our limits to construct this structure.
At this point the manager Mr. Jagat Pal objected and demanded us to stop our construction work as it was "against the clauses of the agreement to make any permanent changes in the building", he said. We told him that it was important and if he thought it was illegal he should produce a document from either MCD or DDA proving the same. He did nothing of this sort and instead resorted to calling the police, who created a big ruckus. All in all, he created a lot of problems.
A month ago he sent us a notice of eviction saying that we need to evict the premises by 30th July. I need to know what we can do to protect ourselves in this situation. Should we file an injunction/get a stay order from the court so that he doesn't create any problem on the 30th? Or should we not do anything and wait to see what happens?
Asked 10 years ago in Property Law
