A P BAGCHI Vs. MRSFMORGAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendant's appeal arising out of a suit for ejectment and arrears of rent from the defendant who occupied the plaintiff's house at No. 10 Albert Road. Admittedly the monthly rent fixed was Rs. 75. The plaintiff's case was that the defendant in spite of repeated notices to vacate the premises stuck to the place and did not deliver possession to the plaintiff. The main defence consisted of two pleas, namely : (1) That there was a contract of tenancy between the parties under which it was agreed that so long as the defendant continued to pay rent regularly and complied with the other conditions, the plaintiff would not be entitled to give him notice to quit; and (2) that 15 days notice given on the 15 of a month by either party was essential. The trial Court decreed the claim, but on appeal the lower appellate Court has dismissed the claim. The findings of the lower appellate Court are that the plaintiff had never accepted the condition set up by the defendant regarding his continuance so long as he paid rent regularly, and there is again a further finding that she never accepted the term not to eject the defendant if rents were paid. The learned Judge says : "it seems to me that it is clear that she did not accept that condition." The defendant relied on certain correspondence which passed between the parties prior to the occupation of the house by the defendant.

(2.) The lower Court has rightly pointed out that the defendant was a trained lawyer familiar with the work of Courts, whereas the plaintiff was an old lady, a lay person, who could not be expected to be acquainted with the technicalities of the law. She had offered to let out the house on rent to the defendant on Rs. 75 a month and she had written a letter to that effect to the defendant on the 12 May 1930 that he was to take the house on a monthly rental of Rs. 75. The defendant offered some conditions in his letter of the 13 May. On 14 May 1930, the plaintiff sent a letter in which, among other matters, she said that 15 days notice of removal to be given on the fifteenth of a month by either party, that is the landlord and tenant, should be a condition. The defendant in reply never accepted all the conditions put forward by the plaintiff in her letter of 14 May 1930. On the other hand, he accepted some of them and put forward no less than nine more conditions, including the one in which it was said that so long as he paid the rent regularly and complied with the conditions the landlady should not be entitled to give him notice to quit. As the offer made by the plaintiff was not accepted in full, but a large number of new conditions were proposed, it became a counter-offer and by no means an acceptance. It is an admitted fact that the plaintiff never replied to this letter.

(3.) The defendant, although he was a lawyer and was dealing with a lay person, never took care to obtain any writing from the plaintiff clearly indicating that she agreed to the condition that she would not be entitled to serve notice upon the defendant to vacate the premises so long as rents were paid regularly. It would indeed be. a strange condition, unless there were some consideration, like premium for a permanent lease, actually paid. On 18 May 1930, without having received any letter from the plaintiff accepting his terms, and without taking any writing from her as to exact conditions agreed upon, the defendant occupied the house and began to live in it as a tenant and continued to pay Rs. 75 a month as rent for the house. It is therefore not surprising that the lower appellate Court has come to the conclusion that there was never any contract as put forward by the defendant and that the plaintiff had never in fact accepted the condition depriving her of her right to get the premises vacated and restricting such right to the case only when rents were not paid regularly. Such a lease would obviously be a permanent lease which would enure almost for ever, at least from generation to generation so long as rents were paid regularly and no other conditions were expressly broken. The lower appellate Court has further found it most difficult to believe that the defendant would have on a mere oral assurance or acceptance of his terms by the plaintiff taken possession of the house without getting something in a more indelible form from her, and accordingly its categorical finding is that the term was never accepted either expressly or tacitly by the plaintiff, and that this condition in dispute which is the fundamental and sole deciding factor in the defendant's case has not been established to have been agreed upon. He has further remarked that as without taking any writing from the plaintiff to enter into the possession of the house, the defendant took possession, it may be inferred that he agreed to the terms which had been offered by her, which are the ordinary terms on which houses are let out on monthly tenancies terminable at 15 days notice. The oral evidence in a matter of this kind was of course interested and was rejected by the lower appellate Court.