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Judgment
G. Mehrotra, C.J.—This is an appeal by the Defendant No. 1 against the decision of the learned Single Judge or this Court. The Plaintiffs'' case is that a building known as the Quinton Memorial Hall at Shillong is a trust property. The trust was created in the year 1908 under a registered deed. During the world war II it was requisitioned by the Government for use by the Air Raid Precaution Department of Shillong. Defendant No. 1 thereafter managed to get into the premises and was occupying it as a monthly tenant at the rate of Rs. 150/- per month according to the English calendar. The Defendant: is running a cinema house in the main Hall and has sub-let portions of the premises. He is also running a motor workshop in the compound. The public are demanding that the Hall should be made available to them for the purpose for which the trust was created. Thus the trustees brought a suit for ejectment of the Defendant after serving on the Defendant notice to quit on the 22nd August 1955. The suit was decreed by the trial court. On appeal the Additional District Judge dismissed the same with costs and the learned Single Judge has reversed the decision of the lower appellate court and decreed the suit.
Two points have been raised by the Appellant. Firstly it is urged that the notice was not a valid notice as the date of the commencement pf the tenancy is not given in the plaint and is not disclosed in the evidence. The contention is that even if the finding is accepted that the tenancy was according to the English calendar month, unless the date of the commencement of the tenancy is known and is proved by the Plaintiff''s, it cannot be said that the notice asking the Defendants to quit the premises by the 30th September 1955 is a valid notice. Secondly it is urged that the finding as to whether the land was bona fide required by the landlords for their use is a finding of fact and the learned Single judge was not right in upsetting that finding. It is further urged that on the mere assertion by some of the trustees in the absence of any demand by the public for the Hall, it cannot be said that the landlords bona fide required the premises for their own use. Lastly it is urged that the finding of the learned Single Judge that the provisions of Section 6 of the Assam Urban Areas Rent Control Act (hereinafter called the Act) do not apply to the present case is erroneous.
Regarding the decision of Single Judge relating to the validity of the notice, the attack is two-fold. Firstly it is urged that the Single judge is not right in setting aside the finding of act arrived at by the lower appellate court. The lower appellate court had remarked that in the present case there is nothing to show from which month or from what date of the English calendar the tenancy commenced. It cannot necessarily be inferred that the date of the tenancy commences von the 1st of any month of the English calendar. If the notice terminated on the 30th September it was incumbent on the Plaintiffs to show that the tenancy commenced from the 1st day of the English calendar month and this was a finding of fact which could not be interfered with by the learned Single Judge. Secondly it is urged that even on merits the Single Judge was right in holding that without mentioning the date of the commencement of the tenancy the Plaintiffs can succeed. The lower appellate court also observed that the Defendants do not admit the tenancy by the English calendar. As pointed out by the learned Single Judge when the averment made in the plaint and the notice sent by the Plaintiffs to the Defendants is read along with the written statement and the reply to the notice, it is abundantly clear that there is no denial of the fact that the tenancy was according to the English calendar month. Thus the lower appellate court was not right in holding that the Plaintiffs have failed to prove that the tenancy was according to the English calendar. It is, however, urged by the Appellant that even assuming that the tenancy was according to the English calendar month, unless the Plaintiffs mention the date of the commencement of the tenancy, the notice terminating the tenancy by 30th September cannot be said to be in accordance with law. Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act provides that in the absence of a contract or local law or usage to the contrary, a lease of Immovable property for agricultural or manufacturing purposes shall be deemed to be a lease from year to year, terminable, on the part of either lessor or lessee, by six months'' notice expiring with the end of a year of the tenancy; and a lease of Immovable property for any other purpose shall be deemed to be a lease from month to month, terminable, on the part of either lessor or lessee, by fifteen days'' notice expiring with the end of a month of the tenancy. When the Plaintiffs state in the plaint that the tenancy is according to the English calendar month and the notice terminates the tenancy by the end of the month of September, the notice does conform to the requirement of a notice expiring with the end pf the month of the tenancy. The only question in these circumstances will be to Ana out if fifteen days'' notice was given to the tenant or not and for that purpose the date of the commencement of the tenancy will be relevant. In the absence of anything to show that the tenant did not get fifteen days notice, it cannot be said that the notice was invalid in law.
In paragraph 6 of the plaint it is alleged that the Defendant is a monthly tenant on a rental of Rs. 150 per month according to the English calendar.
At this stage reference may be made to cases cited at the bar. The first case relied upon by the Appellant is Mozam Shaikh Vs. Annada Prasad Bhadra and Another, Reliance is placed on the following passage:
Where in a suit by the landlord to eject his tenant the landlord pleads that the notice served by him was sufficient to determine the tenancy the onus is on the landlord to establish that the notice legally determined the tenancy by showing that it expired either with the end of the year or the end of the month of the tenancy. In the absence of evidence by the Plaintiff to show when the year or month of the tenancy commenced his suit must fail.
In that case the defence taken was that the tenancy was a yearly tenancy and further that the tenancy commenced from the 26th Falgoon and thus the notice given by the landlord terminating the tenancy by the 30th Chaitra was neither the end of the month of the tenancy nor of the year of the tenancy. Undoubtedly the burden is on the Plaintiff landlord to prove that the tenancy was terminated according to law. But there is nothing in the Transfer or Property Act which says that the date of the commencement of the tenancy must be set out in the plaint. The purpose of establishing the date of the commencement of the tenancy is to show that the notice was in compliance with Section 106 of'' the Transfer of Property Act, that is, that it terminates the tenancy by the end of the month of the tenancy and that fifteen days'' clear notice had been given to the tenant. If these two things are established, then the suit cannot be dismissed on the ground that the notice was illegal. There being a categorical finding that the tenancy was according to the English calendar month, the notice terminating the tenancy by the 30th September is certainly a notice terminating the tenancy by the end of the month of the tenancy. Moreover when the single Judge has found it from the pleadings and the circumstances of the case, it will not be for the Bench hearing the Letters Patent Appeal to interfere with that finding. In the present appeal the Bench is, not called upon to interfere with the decision of the single Judge on the ground that he has interfered with the findings of fact of the lower appellate court.
The next case is Ahumad Ali Biswas Vs. Jyotsna Kumar Bandopadhyay and Another, Dealing with the question of Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act the learned single Judge in this case observed:
Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act clearly contemplates any kind of ''monthly tenancy'' and it is well known that a monthly tenancy may be according to an English calendar, Bengali calendar, Sambat calendar and so forth, and may commence on any day of the particular month, say, from the 5th of one to the 4th of the next and so on. Hence it is incorrect to say that all tenancies from month to month u/s 106 must be according to the English calendar in view of Section 33 of the General Clauses Act.
The only point decided in this case is that by virtue of Section 33 of the General Clauses Act it cannot be said that the tenancy from month to month must be according to the English calendar. In that case a notice to quit written in Bengali was given on 20-12-1948 calling upon the tenant to vacate 15 days after the notice within the month of Poush, that is to say, by the first of Magh. It was held that it was a valid notice as the intention was to terminate the tenancy by the end of the Bengali calendar month according to which the tenancy was. This case does not support the contention of the Appellant.
The next case cited by the Appellant is Haridas Tapadar Vs. Sailendra Chandra De (minor) and Another, This case in our opinion, does not support the contention of the Appellant. On the facts of this case the judgment of the lower appellate court was upheld and it was held that le notice was a valid notice. The decree was modified on other grounds.
Reference has been made to two unreported decisions of this Court (1) Second Appeal No. 82 of 1950 Sudhir Kumar Gupta v. Ram Charan Singh dated 5-7-1951 (Assam) and (2) Second Appeal No. 40 of 1952 Mozam Shaikh Vs. Annada Prasad Bhadra and Another, In Second Appeal No. 82 of 1950 (Assam) the learned Judge has referred to the statement of the Plaintiff and has come to a finding that there was no evidence, to show the commencement of the notice and in the other appeal also the facts were distinguishable. In this case the notice clearly says that the tenancy is according to the English calendar month and that is followed by the statement regarding the termination of the tenancy immediately after the completion of the month of September 1955. The expression used is the completion of the month of September 1955'' and when that is read along with the statement that the tenancy was according to English calendar month, there is an averment in the notice by implication that the date of commencement is the first of the calendar month. As has been laid down by their Lordships of the Privy Council in the case of Harihar Banerji v. Ramshashi Roy AIR 1918 PC 102 the notices are not to be strictly construed and the test of their sufficiency is not, what they would, mean to a stranger ignorant of all the facts and circumstances touching the holding to which they purport to refer, but what they would mean to tenants presumably conversant with all those facts and circumstances; and further, they are to be construed not with a desire to find fault in them which would render them defective but to be construed ut res magis valeat quam pereat doe. Although the facts in the Privy Council case were different but the principle laid down is applicable to the facts of the present case. When the notice states that the tenancy is according to the English calendar month and that it terminates with the end of the month of September, a tenant who is supposed to know the facts fully must be presumed to know that the tenancy commenced from the first of the month. There is, therefore, no force in the contention that the notice was not valid.
The relevant portion of Section 6 of the Assam Urban Areas Rent Control Act, 1955 (Assam Act III of 1956) lays down as follows:
(1) No order or decree for the recovery of possession of any house shall be made or executed by any Court so long as the tenant pays rent to the full extent allowable under this Act and performs the conditions of the tenancy:
Provided that nothing in this Sub-section shall apply in a suit or proceedings for eviction of the tenant from the house:
(c) where the house is bona fide required by the landlord either for purposes of repairs or re-building, or for his own occupation or for the occupation of any person for whose benefit the house is held, or where the landlord can show any other cause which may be deemed satisfactory by the Court....
The lover appellate court rejected the case of the Plaintiffs that it was bona fide required for the occupation of the landlord on the finding that there was no demand from the public for the hall and that the bona fide requirement cannot be inferred simply from the desire or liking of the people. The trustees were examined. They stated that the trust was for public purposes and thus the hall should be made available for use by the public for holding public meetings and other social and cultural functions. The hall could not be used consistently with purposes of he trust for cinema and on those circumstances f the landlord wanted to eject the tenant, it cannot be said that it was not bona fide required by the landlord for his own occupation. Section 6(1)(c) further says that the court can also grant a decree for ejectment if the landlord can show any other cause which is deemed satisfactory by the court. The trust was a charitable trust. The hall was for the benefit of the public and the use of the hall for cinema purposes will not be consistent with the object of the trust and thus the single Judge held that there was satisfactory cause for ejectment, it cannot thus be said that the case is not covered by proviso (c) to Section 6(1).
The learned single Judge has further held that this Act was not applicable to a charitable trust. The landlord has been defined in the Assam Urban Areas Rent Control Act to mean any person who is, for the time being, receiving or entitled to receive rent in respect of any house whether on his own account, or on account, or on behalf, or for the benefit of any other person, or as a trustee, guardian or receiver for any other person; and includes in respect of his sub-tenant, a tenant who has sublet any house and further includes every person not being a tenant who from time to time derives title under a landlord but does not include State Government or Central Government or a Local Authority. The learned single Judge has held that the property was held as a trust. But unless the trust was held for any other person, the trust will not come within the meaning of ''landlord'' under this Act. The trust was for charitable and public purposes and thus the property was not held for any other person by the trustees and they do not come within the definition of ''landlord''.
The Appellant contends that there being no other person as a beneficiary under the trust, the rent was received by the trustees on their own account and thus in the present case they covered by the first part of the definition of landlord. As we have agreed with the single judge that the case is covered by Section 6(1)(c) it is not necessary for us to go into that question. In result, therefore, we would dismiss this appeal with costs. One month''s time is granted to Defendant to vacate the house.