CHOTELAL BARNWAL Vs. BHUNESHWAR PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal is by the tenants who were defendants in the suit.

(2.) The plaintiff filed a suit for eviction of the defendants from the suit premises. The suit has been decreed by the two Courts below. In this second appeal, the only question raised on behalf of the appellants by Mr. Sudhir Chandra Ghose is regarding the validity of the notice under Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act, which was admittedly served on the defendants. It is not in dispute that the tenancy is a monthly tenancy according to the English calendar month. The notice in this case which was sent on the 6th March 1965, required the defendants to vacate the premises in question on the expiration of the 31st March 1965 or at the expiration of the month of your tenancy which shall expire next after the end of the month of the tenancy from the service of this notice.

(3.) Learned counsel for the appellants contended that a notice couched in the language quoted above was vague and as such it was not a valid and legal notice in the eye of law. There cannot be any doubt that if a notice is vague it cannot be held to be a good notice under Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act. What therefore has to be seen is whether the relevant portion of the notice in question as already quoted above is vague. The question whether a notice is vague depends on what upon its fair and reasonable construction the document means is the tenant left by its terms in any doubt as to its intended effect. In my view, where a notice to vacate the premises gives a date which according to the plaintiff is the date of the expiry of the monthly tenancy, and when it also gives an alternative date which is either earlier or later, it cannot be said that the notice is vague or indefinite or incapable of being understood. What the landlord says in the notice is that he terminates the tenancy as from the specified date, but gives an option to the tenant to vacate on a later date as given in the notice, (this date must also fulfill the requirement of Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act). Similar questions have been considered by several High Courts including our own High Court. I propose to notice some of the decisions in the succeeding paragraph.