R RAMASWAMI CHETTIAR Vs. SRIPERUMBUDUR MRAMASWAMI PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against the decree of the Principal Judge, City Civil Court, dismissing the appellant's suit for ejectment of his tenant (the respondent) and for mesne profits.

(2.) The respondent and another entered into possession of the suit land on the 14 July, 1921, by Ex. D-1, which was a registered lease for a term of ten years, agreeing to pay Rs. 12 per month for the first five years and Rs. 15 per month for the second period of five years. According to the evidence of the respondent, which has not been refuted, the respondent alone continued in possession after the expiry of the lease in 1931. The other lessee is said to have died in 1936, where-upon his relatives took away his cows and took no further interest in the sheds which had been erected on the suit land after the execution of the lease in 1921. On the 15 July, 1944, after the suit land had been sold to the plaintiff by Bala-sundara Achari, son of Gangadhara Achari (the lessor under Ex. D-1) the defendant executed a rental agreement, Ex. P-1, in favour of the plaintiff. The question is whether on these facts the respondent is a tenant within the meaning of the Madras City Tenants Protection Act and is entitled to the benefit of those provisions. If he is, then the suit was rightly dismissed : if he was not then the plaintiff is entitled to succeed in his suit for ejectment.

(3.) In Section 1, Sub-clause 3, the Act is said to apply to tenancies of land created before the commencement of the Act. The only tenancy prior to the Act with which we are concerned is Ex. D-1, dated the 14 July, 1921, which expired after the coming into force of the Act. Under Section 2(4) "tenant" is defined as " tenant of land liable to pay rent on it... and includes persons who continue in possession after the termination of the tenancy." The respondent was liable to pay rent on the land from 1921 onwards and he continued in possession after the termination of the tenancy. So, under the clear wording of this sub-section, he is a tenant within the meaning of the Act entitled to the privileges conferred by the Act.