USHARANI DEBI Vs. CHARUSILA DASI AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is another case where the landlords claim for ejectment is being resisted on the plea of waiver of the notice to quit.

(2.) The tenancy started about 8 or 9 years back. It was a small tenancy according to the Bengali Calendar at a monthly rent of Rs. 14 plus electric charges and it comprised only one room and a kitchen in the ground floor of premises No. 1, Sri Krishna Lane, Calcutta. In Feb., 1951, the landlady Sm. Charusila Dasi, who is respondent No. 1 in this appeal, gave notice to the tenant appellant Sm. Usharani Debi to quit and vacate the suit premises on the expiry of the last date of the month of Falgoon, 1357 B. S. and, the appellant having failed to comply with the said notice, the present suit for ejectment was instituted against her in the Court of Small Causes, Calcutta; on the 29th May, 1951.

(3.) In the meantime, however, on the 30th April, 1951, the rent for the month of Chaitra, 1357, B.S., sent by the tenant by postal money order, had been accepted on behalf of the plaintiff landlady and the rent for the next Bengali month, namely, Baisakh, 1358, B.S., was also remitted by the tenant by postal order and duly received and accepted by the landlady's son on her behalf on or about the 7th June, 1951, that is, after the institution of the ejectment suit, and, accordingly one of the two principal defences, taken by the tenant, was that the notice to quit had been waived and the suit on the basis thereof was not maintainable in law. This defence succeeded before the learned trial Judge who did not, in the circumstances, deem it necessary to consider the merits of the landlady's plea of "reasonable and bona-fide requirement" under the Rent Control Act. The learned trial Judge, however, recorded an opinion on the other question under the Act, namely, whether the tenant was defaulter and on that point he held in favour of the tenant.