SATYANARAYAN SHRISHANKAR MARWADI Vs. VITHOBA TATYA NANDARKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India by the petitioner Satyanarayan Shrishankar Marwadi, wherein the petitioner has prayed for the quashing of the order passed by the Bombay Revenue Tribunal on November 8, 1957, by which order the Tribunal confirmed the order made by the Prant Officer on July 3, 1957. It may be noted that the Prant Officer by his order dated July 3, 1957, had confirmed the order of the Mamlatdar dated January 31, 1957.

(2.) THIS application raises a question under Sections 14 and 24 of the Tenancy Act, and the question is this where a landlord seeks to eject the tenant upon the ground that the tenant had done acts of destruction and permanent injury to the land, must he give two separate notices to the tenant, one under Section 14 and the next one under Section 24? In other words, can a landlord start a proceeding under Section 24 for ejectment of the tenant without having given him in the first instance a notice under Section 14, or, if a notice under Section 14 is given by him, is he absolved from giving a notice under Section 24? This question arises in the following circumstances:

(3.) IT would appear that all the Courts below took the view that the notice dated June 17, 1954, which was given by the petitioner to opponent No. 1 was not a proper notice. Now, reading Section 14 and Section 24 of the Act, we have no doubt that the Legislature, while enacting these sections, clearly contemplated that two notices were necessary to be given by a landlord to his tenant in a case where a landlord seeks to eject the tenant upon the ground that the tenant had done acts of destruction and/or permanent injury to the land. If we turn to Section 24, it opens with the words Where any tenancy of any land held by any tenant is terminated on the ground that the tenant has done any act which is destructive or permanently injurious to the land. Having used these words, the Legislature went on to say in Section 24: 'no proceeding for ejectment against such tenant shall lie'. It is clear, therefore, that before a proceeding for ejectment under Section 24 of the Act can lie against a tenant, there should have taken place a termination of the tenancy of the tenant by a notice under Section 14 of the Act. In the Tenancy Act there is only one section which deals with the termination of tenancies and that section is Section 14; and it is clear upon the reading of the plain language of Section 24 that before a proceeding for ejectment can be taken by a landlord against his tenant, there should, already have taken place a termination of the tenant's tenancy by a notice under Section 14. The important words in Section 24 are the words 'such tenant'. There is no doubt that the words 'such tenant' mean the tenant against whom there has already been issued a notice of termination of tenancy under Section 14 of the Act by his landlord. It is, therefore, clear that the Act contemplates two notices, one under Section 14, that is to say, a notice terminating the tenancy of the tenant, and the other one under Section 24, that is, a notice about I a proceeding to eject the tenant. This is also evident from the language used by the Legislature in Section 24. Section 24 says: Where any tenancy of any land held by any tenant is terminated on the ground that the tenant has done any act which is destructive or permanently injurious to the land, no proceeding for ejectment against such tenant shall lie unless and until the landlord has served on the tenant a notice in writing specifying the act of destruction or injury complained of and the tenant fails within a period of one year from the service of notice to restore the land to the condition in which it was before such destruction or injury. The important words are: 'where any tenancy is terminated no proceeding for ejectment...shall lie... ' It is clear, therefore, that the termination of tenancy must precede the commencement of a proceeding for ejectment. In the present case, the petitioner gave only one notice to opponent No. 1, and that, in our view, was a notice under Section 14. I shall presently point out that even this notice, namely, the notice under Section 14, was a defective notice. For the present, suffice it to say that in this case the landlord gave only one notice and that was a notice under Section 14; he did not give another notice, namely, a notice under Section 24, prior to the proceeding for ejectment, which he started on June 20, 1956.