Lawyers across Gujarat went back to court on Wednesday, October 7, after the state government promised to drop the most contested part of the Gujarat Rent Bill, 2026. Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi gave that assurance to Bar Council of Gujarat office-bearers in a 45-minute meeting in Gandhinagar on Tuesday evening, according to Gujarat Samachar, which counted 280 bar associations in the strike. The provision in question would have handed rent cases from judges to revenue and municipal officers.
What the Assembly passed, and what lawyers objected to
The Assembly passed the Bill on September 11 to replace the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947, a law older than the state of Gujarat. As DeshGujarat laid out when the Bill was tabled, it sets up three tiers:
- a Rent Authority headed by an officer of at least Deputy Collector or Assistant Municipal Commissioner rank, which would receive every tenancy agreement;
- a Rent Court run by an Additional Collector or Deputy Municipal Commissioner;
- a Rent Tribunal for appeals, chaired by a District Judge or Additional District Judge.
Only the top tier would have been a judicial officer. Today, landlord-tenant suits in Ahmedabad and other cities go to civil courts and Small Causes Courts, where a sizeable share of the civil bar earns its living. Lawyers argued that the Bill gave an administrative officer the powers of a judge. ETV Bharat also reported fears for the incomes of junior advocates. Bars in Vadodara and Surat had stopped work days before the statewide call on October 5.
The design was not invented in Gandhinagar. The Centre’s Model Tenancy Act, 2021, which it asked states to adapt, uses the same Deputy Collector, Additional Collector and District Judge ladder. The idea behind it is speed: officers with fixed timelines instead of crowded civil dockets. Gujarat’s Bill asked for cases to be decided within 60 days.
How the climbdown unfolded
The strike shut out private lawyers from the Gujarat High Court on October 5, PTI reported via ThePrint. Hearings were adjourned that day. In court, Advocate General Kamal Trivedi told Justice M.J. Shelat that the government had assured the Bar Council the Bill would not proceed and the Governor would not sign it.
On Tuesday the government went further. IANS, in a report carried by Social News XYZ, said the state promised to withdraw the clause moving powers from the judiciary to the executive. A committee with members from the Bar Council, the Ahmedabad Bar Association and the Ahmedabad Small Causes Court Bar Association will take its objections to the Law Secretary. The Bar Council has called the strike off, but describes it as deferred, which leaves the lawyers room to walk out again if the redraft disappoints them.
What it means for tenants and landlords
The Bill has no Governor’s assent, so none of it applies yet. Your existing lease, deposit and any pending eviction case still run under the 1947 Act. Several provisions that drew little protest from lawyers were aimed at ordinary renters and owners:
- security deposits capped at three months’ rent, refundable within a month of the tenant handing back the keys;
- a written agreement for every residential and commercial tenancy, reported to the Rent Authority within two months;
- eviction allowed after two consecutive months of unpaid rent, and double rent for a tenant who stays on after the lease ends.
A tenant asked for more than three months’ rent as deposit stands to gain from the cap. Landlords stand to gain from faster evictions of defaulters. Whether either survives depends on how the government rebuilds the dispute machinery. If rent cases stay in civil courts, a 60-day deadline is hard to promise, since those courts already carry long pending lists.
What to watch
The committee has no published deadline. The government will have to amend the Bill before any part of it can take effect. Watch three things: who will head the first two tiers in the new draft, whether the 60-day disposal target survives, and whether the deposit cap and written-agreement rule stay intact. Until then, Gujarat’s renters keep living under a 79-year-old law.
Sources: Gujarat Samachar, ThePrint (PTI), ETV Bharat, DeshGujarat, IANS via Social News XYZ
This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.