AMBICA PROSAD DASS Vs. JCGALSTAUN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a suit for the specific performance of an alleged agreement by the defendant to grant the plaintiff a lease of certain premises, known as No. 2, Chowringhee in Calcutta. The defence is that there was no concluded agreement between the parties, and that certain letters which passed between them amounted to negotiation and negotiation only. The facts lie within a very narrow compass. There is no dispute that, on the 25 of May 1906, the plaintiff and the defendant had an interview at Kidderpur about the granting of a lease by the defendant to the plaintiff and that the effect of that conversation was embodied in a letter which the defendant's solicitors wrote to the plaintiff on the 26 of May. The letters runs as follows: Re lease of No. 2, Chowringhee Road. Dear Sir, With reference to the writer's interview with you last evening when it was verbally agreed between you and our client Babu Ambica Prosad Dass that a lease of the above property should be granted to you for 51 years at a monthly rent of Rs. 1,000 per mensem besides all taxes payable by landlord and tenant which should be paid by you. The principal terms of the lease being that you should build a three-storied house on its site after demolishing the old buildings at a cost of not less than rupees one lac and that you should give security to the extent of Rs. 50,000 by way of deposit of title-deeds of landed properties or in Government securities which sum our client shall be entitled to get from you as liquidated damages in case you fail to build the house in terms of your agreement on that behalf, and that, for one year from the date of execution of the lease, you would have to pay to our client the gross amount of rent he is now getting from the property and that you would have to pay all taxes and outgoing payable in respect thereof and thereafter at the rate of Rs. 1,000 per month as aforesaid. Please confirm the above agreement in writing. On receipt of your reply, our client will serve the present tenants with notices to quit as arranged. As to the plan, we are afraid, the original plan of the property given to our client's predecessor-in-title when the property was bought will not help you much in preparing a plan for submission to the Corporation for sanctioning constructions of buildings; a plan of the ground-floor should be prepared by some professional man after survey to enable your builder to draw out a plan of the buildings to be built thereon. However, we send herewith the said original plan. Kindly sign the accompanying accountable receipt.

(2.) The same day, the plaintiff wrote and sent to the defendant's solicitors the letter of that date which runs as follows: Re No. 2, Chowringhee Road. Dear Sirs, Yours of date to hand and hereby confirm the same. Please serve the tenants with a notice to quit.

(3.) On the 29 of May, the defendant's solicitors wrote and sent to the plaintiff the following letter: Dear Sir--In our letter of the 26 May giving the principal terms of the lease verbally agreed between you and our client Babu Ambica Prosad Dass in the presence of our Mr. Sen, at his residence, we find that we forgot to mention that the house to be built by you on the site of the old buildings shall after the expiration of the term of the lease become, as usual, the property of the lessor. Please send us a reply containing the above arrangement so that our client may serve the monthly tenants with notices requiring them to vacate the shop-rooms in their occupation as desired by you.