ANANTA KUMAR SAHA Vs. CHARU CHANDRA MUKHERJEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises out of a suit for ejectment, rent and mesne profits. The suit was dismissed by the trial court except for the claim for rent, the amount of arrears of rent appearing to have been deposited in court during the pendency of the suit in the trial court for obtaining stay of the same under Section 3 of the Bengal Non-Agricultural Tenancy (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1940. On appeal, the aforesaid decree of dismissal was set aside and the claim for ejectment also was allowed and the suit was decreed for ejectment with certain directions, the mesne profits and also the claim for rent being left to be determined by the trial court in a future proceeding. Against this appellate decree, the present appeal has been preferred by the Defendants Nos. 2 and 3, who were purchasers pendente lite of the interest of the original tenant, Defendant No. 1, against whom alone the suit was brought in the first instance.

(2.) The facts, relevant, for our present purpose, may now be stated briefly as follows:

(3.) The learned Subordinate Judge, before whom the Plaintiffs' appeal came up for hearing, however, took a different view in the matter-not on the question that there were "pucca structures" on the said land, as claimed by the Defendants nor on the question that they were allowed by the landlords to have been constructed by the tenant (Defendant No. 1) but upon the view that, the tenant Defendant No. l's tenancy having expired by efflux of time, in February, 1941, or at any rate, by reason of the notice to quit in June, 1941, at the date of the present suit or at the date of the 1949 Act, referred to above, or earlier, at the date of the transfer pendente lite to Defendants Nos. 2 and 3, the said tenant, Defendant No. 1 had become a trespasser and so, Defendants Nos. 2 and 3 also, who were mere transferees from him, could not claim to be in a better position and they also were trespassers and all the Defendants being thus trespassers at the date of the instant suit and/or at the time when the 1949 Act came into operation, they could not be regarded as non-agricultural tenants within the meaning of the said Act and could not, therefore, claim any protection there under. This, indeed, was the main or the substantial reason for the decision of the learned Subordinate Judge, decreeing the Plaintiffs' claim for ejectment. The learned Subordinate Judge also disagreed with the learned Munsif on his other finding that, in the circumstances of this case, the tenant Defendant No. 1 could not be said to have been holding over after June 1941, and that finding of the learned Munsif also was expressly set aside.