LAWS(BOM)-1959-3-22

RAO SAHEB ANANDRAO MAHAGAONKAR Vs. EKNATH DNYANOBA PATIL

Decided On March 13, 1959
Rao Saheb Anandrao Mahagaonkar Appellant
V/S
Eknath Dnyanoba Patil Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners in both these petitions under Article 227 of the Constitution are landlords of certain lands and had sought possession of those lands from the respective respondents in the two petitions on the ground that these respondents had forfeited the tenancies in their favour because they had sub -let all the lands or some of the lands, which were leased out to them.

(2.) IT may be pointed out that in both the petitions before Us a number of fields were leased out to the respective respondents in the two petitions by their landlords under a single lease one of which reserved a single rent with respect to the demised lands. In Spl. C.A. No. 3384 of 1958 the contention of the petitioner -landlord was that his tenants had sub -let all the lands leased out to them. The Tribunals below have, however, held that only a portion of the demised lands was sub -let by the tenants. In Spl. C.A. No. 1328 of 1958 the contention of the petitioner -landlord was that most of the lands were sub -let by the tenants and the Tribunals have upheld a part of this contention. We, therefore, proceed on the basis that only a portion of the demised lands was sub -let by the respondents -tenants, and the question which we have to consider is whether as a result of this the leases in favour of the respondents are liable to be terminated at the instance of the petitioners.

(3.) THE earliest case on the point is Church v. Brown [1808] 15 Vas. 258; 33 E.R. 752 which is referred to at page 411 of Cheshire's Modern Real Property. In that case it was held that a covenant placing a restriction on the tenant's right to sub -let the premises must be construed very strictly. This view was followed in Grove v. Portal [1902] 1 Ch. 727 and also in certain Indian decisions to which we will advert presently. These decisions and several others were considered by the Court of Appeal in Cook v. Shoesmith [1951] 1 K.B. 752 and it was held that on its true construction, the undertaking in the agreement 'not to sub -let' was not broken by sub -letting part of the premises, for the verb 'to sublet' must have an object and its only possible object was the house which was the subject -matter of the agreement. In Esdadle v. Lewis [1956] 2 All.E.R. 357, the majority of Judges following the decision in Cook v. Shoesmith and the earlier cases construed the words 'no sub -letting allowed without the written consent of the landlord' as prohibiting the sub -letting of the entire premises demised, and not of part of them.