LAWS(PVC)-1924-9-79

JARU POOJARI Vs. SOMAKKE

Decided On September 09, 1924
JARU POOJARI Appellant
V/S
SOMAKKE Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendant-appellant admittedly held the plaint property, as a tenant for a year, ending with 31 March, 1916, under a chalgeni chit, dated 30 May, 1915, executed by him in favour of one Ugga Setty the predecessor-in-interest of the first respondent. He held over and the first respondent sent him a registered notice, dated 27 November, 1917 (Exhibit B), requiring him to quit by the following Vishusankramana (12 April, 1918). The lower Court found that the appellant wrongfully refused to receive it and it fixed him with the knowledge of its contents. Argument was advanced, on behalf of the appellant, that the notice was invalid, as it required surrender, only on 12 April. 1918, instead of 31 March, 1918. The learned District Judge overruled it, on the main ground that Vishusankramana is the customary day for termination of agricultural leases in South Canara.

(2.) The only point taken before me in second appeal is that relating to the in validity of the notice. The lease is an agricultural lease and hence the provisions of the Transfer of Property Act do not strictly apply; but the analogy of the said provisions and the principles of English-law are relied upon by the appellant. There is no doubt that under the English-law, the notice must be to quit at the end of the year. As observed in Doe v Lea 11 East. 313 "if it (notice) might be given to quit 12 days afterwards, it might as well be at any time." The question for decision is, to what extent is this principle applicable to agricultural leases of the kind under consideration.

(3.) It seems to me that the question is amply covered by authority, which is binding? on me. In Gangadharam Pattar V/s. Manavihraman (1917) 6 L.W. 491, this Court held that in the case of Verumpattam leases in Malabar, all that was required was reasonable notice which was a question of fact, to be decided in each case, according to the particular circumstances and the local custom as to reaping crops and letting land. The Court expressly decided that the exact synchronising of the date, fixed in the notice, with the termination of the periods of the lease, was not necessary in every case. See also Jagat Chunder Roy V/s. Rup Chand Chango (1883) 9 Cal. 48, and Maung Po V/s. Muniandi Servai (1917) 86 P.R. 1917. The decision in Krisna Shetti V/s. Gilbert Pinto (1919) 42 Mad. 654, on which reliance was placed by the learned Vakil for the appellant, does not lay down anything to the contrary; all that it decided was that the provisions of the Transfer of Property act and the rules of English Law are binding, as rules of equity, justice and good conscience, when dealing with agricultural leases in the absence of any special reason for not applying them.