Conditions for defense to action for rent.

This second appeal arises out of a suit for ejectment and for rent. So far as the first relief is concerned, it is admitted that the lease under which the plaintiff claims and on the basis of which he has granted a sub-lease to the defendant has expired. The second relief is however the practical relief with reference to which a decree must be given in favour of the plaintiff, if he is to succeed in his contention of estoppel against his tenant, the defendant. The Courts below have dismissed the suit on the ground that there was a determination of the lease in favour of the defendant by the determination of the title of the plaintiff as the lessee from the original owner.

In appeal it is contended that in holding against the estoppel under section 116 of the Indian Evidence Act, pleaded by the plaintiff, the Courts below have erred in the view that they have taken that there was a threat of eviction by title paramount from the original owner against the defendant. It is urged that there could be no determination of the lease in favour of the defendant so long as the interest of the plaintiff himself as the defendant’s lessor did not terminate in the manner contemplated by section 111(c) of the Transfer of Property Act.

The material facts are that there was a scheme suit in respect of the property which belonged to the trust, the original owner, in which the plaintiff as a lessee from one of the trustees then in management, one Kanthimathinatha Pillai was impleaded but was given up at the trial, that afterwards the new trustees appointed by the scheme framed in that suit served two notices on the defendant, Ex. P-9, dated 6th January, 1943, and Ex. D-3 dated 17th May, 1943, in both of which they asserted their title as trustees under the scheme, and in the latter of which they impeached the title of Kanthimathinatha Pillai to grant the lease to the plaintiff as he was only one of several trustees and not the managing trustee at the time, and called upon the defendant to vacate the premises, threatening him in default with proceedings for eviction, and that thereafter the defendant executed Ex. D-4 dated 23rd June, 1943, a rent deed, in favour of the managing trustee appointed under the scheme. These facts, it is contended for the appellant, do not constitute sufficient threat of eviction by title paramount such as would justify the attornment by the defendant to the managing trustee under the scheme so as to put an end to the relationship of lessor and lessee between himself and the defendant. The appellant further points out that the judgment and decree in the scheme suit do not at all declare the invalidity of the lease in favour of the plaintiff by Kanthimathi-natha Pillai but leave the question of the validity of his lease open. He also contends that the learned Subordinate Judge has made the mistake of supposing that there was a prior judgment, Ex. D-7 which by the way related to a lease of other property in favour of another person in which Kanthimathinatha Pillai, had been declared by the High Court in the second appeal to which that judgment relates, not entitled to grant leases as he was only one of several trustees and not the managing trustee. It is not contended for the respondent that the learned Judge has not made this mistake. What is contended is that although the scheme judgment and decree did not pronounce upon the validity or invalidity of the lease in favour of the present plaintiff, the title of the plaintiff must be taken to have come to an end, because in fact Kanthimathinatha Pillai was only one of several trustees and not the managing trustee and could not therefore grant the lease to the plaintiff. It is also contended for the respondent that the question whether there was in fact a threat of eviction by title paramount is a question of fact with the lower appellate Court’s finding on which I ought not to interfere.

What exactly constitutes a threat of eviction by title paramount which results in