A notice expiring on the anniversary of the commencement of the tenancy is considered a valid notice, even if it does not expire on the last day of a period of the tenancy.

Shearer, J.

1. This second appeal arises out of a suit in ejectment, which has been decreed. The defendant put forward two alternative pleas, one plea was that he was the owner of the premises and that the plaintiff was not his landlord. The other was that, if in fact he was a tenant, the notice to quit which had been served on him was not, in law, a valid notice, and did not terminate his tenancy. As these two picas were based of facts which were wholly incompatible with one another, it is not clear to me why the defendant was permitted to put them forward, it was clearly not open to the defendant to assert in one breath that he was not a tenant of the plaintiff, and in another, to assert that he was a tenant and his tenancy had not been properly determined. The Courts below have both negatived the first of the two pleas which were taken, and there is clearly no substance in the contention now put forward by Mr. Tarkeshwar Nath that the plaintiff, not being the nearest reversioner of Chandrika, was not the owner of the premises occupied by him. The conveyance executed by Mt. Sona Kuar to the plaintiff could only be challenged by the nearest reversioner, who is an uncle of the plaintiff, and moreover, cannot be challenged so long as Mt. Sona Kuar is alive. The other plea put forward is based on the fact that the defendant was called on to vacate the premises on the 1st January 1946, whereas he ought to have been called on to vacate them on the 31st of December 1945. It has long been well settled in England that while in the case of a periodic tenancy a notice to quit must be expressed to expire on the last day of a period, a notice expressed to expire on the anniversary of the commencement of the tenancy is nevertheless a good notice. The decisions bearing on the point were reviewed by Lindley, L.J., in Sidebotham V/s. Holland, (1895) 1 Q B 378. The decision was cited with approval by a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court as far back as 1900. (Vide Ismail Khan Mahomed V/s. Jaigun Bibi, 27 Cal 570 at p. 579. Mr. Tarkeshwar Nath for the appellant has cited a number of decisions which, no doubt, show that the notice ought to be expressed to be a notice expiring on the last day of a period of the tenancy, in none of these decisions it is, however, laid down that a notice expiring on the anniversary of the commencement of the tenancy is a bad notice. Mr. Tarkeshwar Nath relied very strongly on Calcutta Landing and Shipping Co. Ltd. V/s. The Victor Oil Co. Ltd., 48 Cal W N 75. That, however, was a somewhat peculiar case inasmuch as the defendant in the ejectment suit appears to have been required to give up possession of the premises "on the expiry of the 1st December 1940." The notice was, therefore, not one which was expressed to expire on the anniversary of the commencement of the tenancy. On the contrary the tenant was permitted to continue in occupation of the premises for 24 hours after a fresh period of the tenancy had commenced. While the exact point with which we are now concerned was not before their Lordships of the Judicial Committee in Harihar Banerji V/s. Ramshahi Roy, 46 Cal 458 (PC), nevertheless, it is clear from the observations made by their Lordships at pages 471 and 472 of the report that they were of opinion that such English decisions as Sidebotham V/s. Holland, (1895) 1 Q B 378, could and ought to be followed in this country. In my opinion, the appeal fails, and must, in consequence, be dismissed with costs.

Ahmad, J.

2 I agree.