A notice to quit addressed to the managing director of a limited company is valid, especially when the notice is understood and treated as such by the company.

( 1 ) THIS is an action in ejectment instituted on 13th May 1948.

( 2 ) IN this suit the plaintiff is suing as the trustee of a trust estate known as debutter estate of Sri Purushottamdas Bhagwan. A vacant plot of land on the premises No. 17, Bolai Singhee Lane, Calcutta, was let out to the defendant company at a rent of Rs. 40/- per month. It is the plaintiff's case that such tenancy was terminated by notice to quit, dated 28th December 1945. The plaintiff claims possession and mesne profits.

( 3 ) THE written statement on behalf of the defendant company was filed and verified by H. C. Pal or Ramesh Chandra Pal, who has described himself as the Managing Director of the defendant company.

( 4 ) ON the pleadings, the following issues were settled: (1) Was the land vacant land? (2) Is the notice to quit valid in law? (3) To what relief, if any, is the plaintiff entitled?

( 5 ) ISSUE NO. 1: This issue is a question of fact. According to the defendant company the land that was let out was not vacant land. That is the plea in the written statement. In giving particulars in para 4 of the written statement on this point, the defendant says that there is upon the said portion a building consisting of walls completely enclosing the said portion with a corrugated iron gate. This case of the written statement improved in evidence and I shall presently deal with the testimony of a witness produced on behalf of the defendant company and also suggestions made in the cross-examination of the plaintiff.

( 6 ) (HIS Lordship considered the oral evidence and continued:) On the evidence of the plaintiff, I must hold that this was a vacant land. On the evidence of the solitary witness Kali Charan Jaiswal who was produced by the defendant company, only the same conclusion can be reached that the land is vacant land and bustee land. The conclusion is re-inforced by the fact that no one from the defendant company has come to say that it was otherwise. This much on the oral evidence.

( 7 ) THE evidence on the documents bears out the same conclusion that the land when let to the defendant was vacant land.

( 8 ) THAT this was bustee land is apparent from the Deed of Settlement which has been exhibited in this suit where this portion of the land in Sch. "d" to that Deed is described as "bustee land measuring one bigha eight cottahs fifteen chittacks more or less. " Then again in the notice to quit dated 28th Decembeer 1945 the plaintiff's solicitors make it distinctly clear that the defendant company was an occupation of only " a portion of the land" at No. 17, Bolai Singhee Lane as a monthly tenant. The defendant company replied on the 26th January 1946 to this notice. In this reply the defendant company far from contending that it is not vacant land expressly refers to "portion of land" and plot. Not a word was suggested in the reply that it was anything other than vacant land.

( 9 ) ON this evidence I hold that the land let out to the defendant was vacant land in fact.

( 10 ) MR. R. K. GHOSE, learned counsel for the defendant company finding the defendant's witness Kali Charan Jaiswal proving unhelpful to the defendant's case, wanted to declare him hostile. There was, however, no material on the basis of which the witness Kali Charan Jaiswal could be declared hostile. There is no evidence that the testimony of this witness contradicts any proof given by him. No reason or occasion is shown why he should bear any animus or prejudice against the defendant. Nothing on record, his testimony and his demeanour show that he was not desirous of telling the truth as he knew it. A witness is not necessarily hostile if in speaking the truth as he knows and sees it, his testimony happens to go against the party calling him. I do not consider that there is any proposition in the law of evidence as I understand it, that a witness who is not partial or partisan in favour of the party calling him is on that ground alone to be treated as hostile.