Wakilii

Uganda Ration Stores and Others v Bandali and Others1 (Civil Appeal No. 80 of 1954)

East African Court of Appeal · [1955] EACA 304 · 1955 Appeal Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Appeal from High Court of Uganda decision granting possession orders to landlords against statutory tenants
Decision
Appeal dismissed; landlords' possession orders upheld with effect from 30 July 1955

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

Citator coverage is limited to judgments in the Wakilii corpus and source-matched treatment records. Absence of a signal is not an assertion that the case remains good law.

AI-generated summary. This summary was generated by AI from the full text of the judgment. It may contain errors or omissions—always read the source judgment before relying on it.

Holding

The Court of Appeal held that any scheme involving demolition of a building and its replacement constitutes a scheme for redevelopment of the site under section 6(1)(l) of the Rent Restriction Ordinance. The sub-section does not require a landlord to possess an approved scheme before giving notice. The material date for assessing compliance is the hearing date, not when notice expires. By majority, the Court held that 'notice to quit' in the sub-section does not bear its technical common law meaning requiring expiry at the end of a tenancy period.

Outcome

Appeal dismissed; landlords' possession orders upheld with effect from 30 July 1955

Facts

The respondent landlords sought possession of business premises from five appellant statutory tenants under section 6(1)(l) of the Rent Restriction Ordinance 1949. The landlords served 12 months' notices to quit on 1 July 1952. A building plan for redevelopment of the site had been approved by Kampala Municipal Council on 24 April 1952, following approval by a Joint Planning Committee on 31 March 1952. The plan remained current for one year but was reapproved on 27 August 1953. The approved plan involved demolition of all existing buildings on the plot. The High Court granted possession orders on 7 July 1954, ordering the appellants to vacate within 30 days. The appellants challenged the validity of the notices to quit and whether the approved plan constituted a scheme of redevelopment within the meaning of the Ordinance.

Issues

  1. Whether the words 'scheme of redevelopment of the site' in section 6(1)(l) of the Rent Restriction Ordinance require something more grandiose than reconstruction or rebuilding of premises on an individual plot.
  2. Whether it is essential under section 6(1)(l) that a landlord be in possession of an approved scheme before giving notice to quit to the tenant.
  3. Whether there was an approved scheme extant at the date of expiry of the notices to quit.
  4. Whether the notices to quit were valid within the meaning of section 6(1)(l), particularly whether they complied with the common law rule that a notice to quit must expire with a term of the tenancy.

Orders

  • Appeal dismissed.
  • Costs of the appeal awarded to the respondents.
  • Possession order made effective on 30 July 1955.

Rules and key headnotes

Landlord and Tenant — Rent Restriction — Scheme of Redevelopment — Meaning
Any scheme or plan which involves the demolition of a building on a site and its replacement by another building is a scheme for redevelopment of the site within the meaning of section 6(1)(l) of the Rent Restriction Ordinance.
Landlord and Tenant — Rent Restriction — Approved Scheme — Timing Requirement
Section 6(1)(l) of the Rent Restriction Ordinance contains no requirement that a landlord must be in possession of an approved scheme before giving notice to quit to a tenant.
Landlord and Tenant — Statutory Tenancy — Material Date for Assessment
In claims for possession orders against statutory tenants, the material date for assessing whether conditions are satisfied is the state of facts at the date of the hearing of the claim, not the date when proceedings are commenced or when notice expires.
Rent Restriction Legislation — Notice to Quit — Technical Meaning
The words 'notice to quit' in section 6(1)(l) of the Rent Restriction Ordinance are not to be construed in the technical common law sense requiring the notice to expire at the end of a period of tenancy, where the tenant is a statutory tenant holding over under the Ordinance rather than a contractual tenant.

Legislation cited (5)

  • Rent Restriction Ordinance 1949 (Cap. 115) s.6(1)(l)
  • Town and County Planning Ordinance 1948
  • Public Health Ordinance
  • Building Rules 1951
  • Building Rules 1939

Cases cited (10)

  • Pyarali Bandali Jaffer and Others v Uganda Ration Stores and Others (Uganda Civil Case No. 352 of 1951)
  • Standingford v. Bruce (1926) 95 L.J.K.B. 223
  • de Vries v. Sparks (1927) 137 L.T. 441
  • Walker v. Gode (1861) 30 L.J. Ex. 172
  • Lemon v. Lardeur (1946) 2 A.E. 329
  • Aboobaker Noor Mohamed Bokhairia v Hajee Yacoob Hajee Ismail (Civil Appeal No. 48 of 1950)
  • Aboobaker Noor Mohamed Bokhairia v. Hajee Yacoob Hajee Ismail 19 E.A.C.A. 108
  • Mitchell v. Townend (1921) 90 L.J.K.B. 601
  • Doe d. Ash v. Calvert 2 Camp 387
  • Shuter v. Hersh (1922) 1 K.B. 438

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

The original judgment as reported. Read the original PDF before relying on any passage.

Uganda Ration Stores and Others v Bandali and Others1 (Civil Appeal No. 80 of 1954) [1955] EACA 304 (1 January 1955)
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.