JAMIL AHMAD Vs. BHARAT BHUSAN SIBAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN July, 1963, Bharat Bhushan respondent filed a regular civil suit for ejectment of the appellant and one Abdul Majid from the property in question. The suit was contested by Jamil Ahmed appellant alone and he represented himself to be the tenant of the entire premises. His defences, inter alia were that the property in question was not a vacant plot of land at the time it was let out to the appellant but included a stall or a Khokha with iron sheet roof and, therefore, amounted to "premises" within the meaning of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 (Act 59 of 1958) and that the notice of ejectment did not terminate with the last day of a month of the tenancy and could not, therefore, furnish a valid basis for his ejectment. From the pleading of the parties the trial court framed the following issues :-

(2.) ON the question of validity of the notice, the first appellate Court has noticed the contention of the tenant to the effect that the month of the tenancy started from 8th of every month and ended on 7th of next month, but that the notice did not expire with the end of the month of the tenancy. After noticing the said contention, the learned Additional Senior Sub-Judge did not give his own decision about this contention, but proceeded to repel it on the short ground that the operation of Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act had been excluded by clause (8) of letter Exhibit P. 1 which reads as follows :-

(3.) IN para. 2 of the notice Exhibit P.-l it is specifically stated that a month of the tenancy commenced from the 8th day of every English Calendar month and terminated on the 7th day of every such subsequent month. In the end it has been said in the notice that the tenancy stands terminated "by 7th January, 1963" and that the tenant is required "to give vacant possession of the portion of the plot" to the landlord "before 7th of January, 1963". Mr. Tej Singh Vohra has contended that "before 7th of January, 1963" is not the same thing as "by the end of a month of the tenancy", as by the operation of Section 110 of the Transfer of Property Act as interpreted in Venkataratnam v. Suryanarayana, AIR 1953 Orissa 58 the month of the tenancy ended on the 8th of January, 1963. These questions have not been dealt with by the first appellate Court.