RAMAN LAL Vs. BHAGWAN DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by a plaintiff whose suit for ejectment of the defendant-respondent from a shop was decreed by a Munsif, but has been dismissed, on appeal, by an Additional Civil Judge. The facts are these.

(2.) The appellant let out the shop to the respondent's father Lallo Mal for a period of eleven months on 23rd October 1942 on a monthly rent of Rs. 15. The period of the lease expired on 23rd September 1943 and Lallo Mal continued to be in possession, paying rent at the same rate of Rs. 15 per month which was accepted by the appellant. Lallo Mal died in January 1944, and the respondent continued in possession. The appellant did not recognise him as his tenant and refused to accept the rent offered by him. He asked him to vacate the shop and on his refusal filed the suit for possession, treating him as a trespasser. He had not given him any notice to quit. The suit was contested on the ground that the respondent had become a tenant by inheritance from his father and was not liable to be ejected without a valid notice to quit. The learned Munsif, holding that he was a trespasser having absolutely no right to remain in possession, decreed the suit, but the learned Civil Judge holding that he was a tenant from month to month and that he could not be ejected without a valid notice to quit, dismissed it. The questions which require to be answered are : (1) What was the nature of the right possessed by Lallo Mal at the time of his death in the shop; and (2) Whether that right was heritable and, if so, the respondent could not be ejected without a notice to quit? It is conceded on behalf of the respondent that if he was a trespasser, that is a person having absolutely no right to remain in possession, he could be ejected without a notice. His case is that Lallo Mal became a tenant from month to month by holding over after the expiry of the lease on 23rd September 1943, that the interest of a tenant from month to month is heritable and that consequently he (the respondent) also became a tenant from month to month. The appellant's case, on the other hand, is that Lallo Mal was a tenant-at-will since 23rd September 1943, that the interest of a tenant-at-will is not heritable, and that the respondent is a trespasser pure and simple. The respondent, in the alternative, contended that, even if Lallo Mal were a tenant-at-will, his interest as such was heritable.

(3.) It is necessary to reproduce the terms of the lease which are contained in a rent-note executed by Lallo Mal. They are as follows :