A report published in The Fiji Times on March 10, 1976 said a Supreme Court judge had criticised the Native Land Trust Board (NLTB) now known as iTaukei Land Trust Board for giving its own interpretation to the laws under which it functioned and advised it seek legal advice before doing so.
Justice Williams said this when he ruled that a notice the NLTB served on two Nadi brothers, Ishwarlal Chabildas and Narendra Kumar, on increasing the rent of their commercial property from $134 to $3678 was invalid.
The judge ordered the board pay costs of the court action. Justice Williams said the NLTB was a creation of legislation and had powers only as they derived from this.
The tenants were the registered owners of a lease of native land amounting to 22.2 perches in the business centre of the town and the land was regarded as a valuable site.
The NLTB leased the land as a commercial lease for 75 years from July 1 1941.
Under the lease, the rent could be reassessed on the 25th and 50th years provided it did not exceed six per cent of the unimproved capital value of the land.
In 1966, the board increased the rent to $134 a year and on October 1 1975 it notified the tenants it would increase the rent to $3678.
The notice said the increase was in accordance with the amended native land tenants licence and lease regulations under which the board would review rents every 10 years.
The tenants asked the court to declare the notice void. They said the board could not increase their rent until 1991. They said the regulations as amended in 1969 was not retrospective. The NLTB claimed it was.
Justice Williams said the 1969 reassessment regulations did not apply to the two tenants lease or other similar lease created before enactment of the amended legislation.
The report added that Chabildas and Kumar were entitled to the declarations they sought, including the declaration that the board could not increase their rent except under the terms of their existing lease.
The regulation set out a procedure for the board to follow when reassessing rents.
A valuer had to be appointed and his valuation be submitted to the tenant.
“It is a provision that the board completely ignored or overlooked,” the judge said.
“Perhaps the board would find it helpful to obtain legal advice before trying to put into effect its own interpretation of its powers under any statute or subsidiary legislation.”
The result of the board attempts to make the amended regulations retrospective had resulted in numerous actions from aggrieved tenants, of which this action was to be treated as a test case.
