The central legal point established in the judgment is that tenants as defined by the Madras City Tenants Protection Act III of 1922 are entitled to the benefit of three months notice before ejectment, as provided by Section 11 of the Act.

Pandrang Row, J.

1. This is an appeal from the decree of the City Civil Judge, Madras, dated February 2, 1935, in O.S. No. 783 of 1934, a suit for ejecting the defendants and for recovery of possession of the plaint property. According to the plaintiff the site on which the plaint superstructure stands, belonged to one Abdul Huq and the defendants were the tenants of the site who had put up the suit superstructure thereon and were paying a rent of Re. 1-13-0 per month. The plaintiff purchased the site from Abdul Huq on October 15, 1934. Some months earlier in execution of a decree of the Small Cause Court, the superstructure belonging to the defendants had been sold and purchased by the plaintiff himself on May 5, 1934. The plaintiff, therefore, claimed to be the owner of the house as well as the site and on the strength of. this title to the house and the site he claimed to recover possession of both. The superstructure was purchased by the plaintiff on May. 5, 1934, and immediately thereafter, on the strength of this purchase, in Court auction, of the superstructure, he instituted a suit for ejecting the defendants, namely, O.S. No. 346 of 1934 In that suit the lower Court held that the plaintiff had not become, by reason of the purchase of the superstructure, the purchaser of the leasehold right of the defendants and that his only right was to pull down the superstructure and take away the material. That finding is res judicata as no appeal was filed from the judgment of the lower Court in that suit and it may be mentioned here that it was only a few days before the judgment in that suit was pronounced that the site itself was purchased by the plaintiff on October 15, 1934. It is clear, therefore, that the plaintiff is not entitled by reason of his purchase of the superstructure in Court-auction in execution of a Small Cause Court decree, to eject the defendants and his claim to eject the defendants must, therefore, be rested on the rights which he acquired by reason of the purchase of the land itself from the owner, Abdul Huq.

2. This is indeed clear from a consideration of Section 28, Presidency Small Cause Courts Act. In any case the matter is now res judicata by reason of the decision of the lower Court in O.S. No. 346 of 1934. A number of issues were framed by the lower Court in the present suits and the suit was decreed, all the issue being found against the defendants and in favour of the plaintiff. In the present appeal by the defendants it is sufficient to consider only one question, namely, the question covered by Issue No. 2 in the Court below which runs as follows: "Is the suit not maintainable for want of proper notice? In order to determine this question, it is necessary to decide whether the defendants are tenants as defined by the Madras City Tenants Protection Act III of 1922, because it is only under Section 11 of that Act that three months notice is required to be given before a suit for ejectment can be instituted against the tenant as defined in the Act. The word tenant is defined in that Act as follows:

Tenant means tenant of land liable to pay rent on it, every other person deriving title from him, and includes persons who continue in possession after the termination of the tenancy.

3. There can be no doubt that the defendants are tenants as defined above, and this cannot be seriously questioned. They are tenants of land and the fact that the superstructure put up by them was sold in Court-action does not terminate their tenancy. It cannot be pretended that because the superstructure is sold or burnt down, the tenancy ceases to exist, or that the tenancy under the Act becomes an ordinary tenancy. By virtue of the decision in the former suit O.S. No. 346 of 1934, it must be held as established between the parties that the lease-hold right of the defendants still inheres in the defendants in spite of the sale of the superstructure. In other words it is clear that the defendants continued to be tenan