Chandigarh’s Assam Tenancy Act: Reform by import
Centre uses its UT powers to rewrite Chandigarh’s rent rules; landlords gain clarity, critics see a copied law with too little local input.
The Centre has reset Chandigarh’s tenancy regime by extending the Assam Tenancy Act, 2021 to the Union Territory under Section 87 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, replacing the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a notification issued on May 6, reported 
The Hindu. The new framework requires written tenancy agreements, creates a Rent Authority-Rent Court-Rent Tribunal structure, and is meant to deliver faster dispute resolution and a more transparent rental market, The Hindu reported.
What the Centre is trying to fix
The power dynamic is straightforward: Delhi controls the rulebook in Chandigarh, because the UT has no legislature of its own. That gives the Centre room to borrow a state law, modify it, and apply it locally without a full political fight in the assembly, The Hindu said. On paper, the logic is administrative efficiency. Chandigarh’s old rent law dates to 1949 and was widely seen as too rigid for a modern urban rental market, while the Assam Act is built around the Centre’s Model Tenancy framework, The Hindu explained.
That is why landlords are the clearest winners. The new law gives them a clearer path to formal contracts, defined eviction grounds, and a time-bound forum for recovery of possession, The Hindu reported. Officials and supporters say that should pull more homes into the formal rental market and reduce the city’s dependence on loosely regulated paying-guest accommodation, as 
The Indian Express noted through comments from Adviser Council member Ajay Jagga.
Why the backlash is political, not just legal
The criticism is not really about tenancy rules alone. It is about whether Chandigarh is being governed by borrowed legislation instead of local policy-making, as The Indian Express quoted lawyer H.C. Garg arguing. He said the administration has been adopting laws from different states “almost verbatim,” without enough attention to Chandigarh’s own social and administrative realities, The Indian Express reported.
That objection has bite because Chandigarh is not Assam. It is a planned Union Territory with a distinct housing market, a large service-class population, and a long-running rent regime shaped by its role as the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, The Hindu explained. In that setting, a law designed for a different state can still work — but only if the administration adapts it carefully and can show the process was consulted, local, and administratively practical. So far, the optics are the opposite: a top-down import.
What to watch next
The next test is not the notification; it is implementation. Watch for how quickly Chandigarh sets up the Rent Authority, how it handles existing cases under the repealed 1949 law, and whether resident groups or political parties turn the issue into another Chandigarh-Punjab-Haryana flashpoint. If the new system runs smoothly, the Centre will have a template for modernizing UT tenancy laws. If it does not, critics will say the problem was never the rent law — it was the habit of importing one.
