Presumption as to tenancy being according to English calendar.

These Second Appeals arise out of suits filed by the appellant against the respondents therein, for recovery of possession of the vacant sites after removal of the huts constructed by them and for arrears of rent. The trial Court decreed the suits, but the lower appellate Court, on appeal by the tenants, dismissed the suits, on the ground that the notices of termination issued by the appellant to the respondents were not valid in law. Hence these second appeals have been filed by the aggrieved plaintiff.

Originally, the suit property bearing S. No. 17/2-A of an extent of 2 acres and 83 cents in Vedakaram Village belonged to one Doraiswamy Naidu. The appellant purchased the property in the year 1935, and he has ever since been in possession and enjoyment of it. According to the appellant, the respondents in S.A. Nos. 1775 and 1962 of 1963 and 371 of 1964 approached him in the year 1957 to permit them to take on lease the vacant strips of land on payment of ground rent at Rs. 1-8-0 per mensem. They were permitted to do so. Similarly, the father of the respondents in S.A. No. 372 of 1964 was permitted to put up a hut in the year 1959. The plaintiff-appellant contended that the respondents in the first three Second Appeals committed wilful default in the payment of monthly rent from May, 1960, and the respondent in the last Second Appeal ever since the commencement of tenancy. The appellant gave notices of termination and called upon them to pay arrears of rent. As the respondents failed to surrender possession and pay the arrears of rent, the appellant filed the suits aforesaid.

The respondents resisted the suits on the ground that the vacant sites were poramboke land, that they were in occupation of the property and had perfected title by adverse possession by continuous occupation for more than the statutory period, that the alleged tenancy agreement was not true and that in any event the notice of termination was not valid, and further they would be entitled to protection under the City Tenants Protection Acts.

Both the Courts below found that the suits property bearing S. No. 17/2-A was not a poramboke land but formed part of patta land, that the appellant was the owner of the suit property, that all the respondents were his tenants from 1957 except Varadappa Chetty who was a tenant from 1959 and that the tenants were not entitled to protection under the Madras City Tenants Protection Act. But, on the question of the validity of the notices of termination, the lower appellate Court, disagreeing with the trial Court, held that there was no valid notice, of termination according to law. On that ground alone all the suits filed by the appellant were dismissed.

The only question, therefore, that arises for consideration in all these appeals is whether the appellant has given a good notice to quit; it is so called because the effect of it is, on the expiration of the period mentioned therein, the tenant must quit the premises. But it is in reality a notice to determine the tenancy. For a notice to quit, no particular form is necessary, but if given by or on behalf of a landlord, it must in substance and effect request the tenant to quit and deliver up possession of the demised premises at a particular time, and the tenant must quit and deliver up possession at the proper time. Woodfall in Landlord and Tenant (26th Edition), paragraph 2161, page 993 observes thus:

"A notice to quit must be clear and certain, so as to bind the party who gives it and to enable the party to whom it is given to act upon it, at the time when it is given. The notice must not be ambiguous."

Justice Bayley, as early as 1824, in Doe D. Lord Huntingtower v. J. Culliford1, a case which is oft-quoted in the House of Lords and Courts of Appeal observed:

"We are to look at the intention of the landlord........He intended to give an effective notice, and it is quite sufficient if the tenant understands what is meant."

In Sidebotham v. Holland2, again a case whi