On determination of lease, if lessee does not remove superstructure, it becomes part of land and property of landlord.

The defendant who is the landlord is the appellant. About the year 1945, the plaintiff became a tenant of the defendant, of a small piece of vacant land 47’ x 21½ ‘and carried on business in sale of firewood, to quote his own words, “after putting up a firewood depot with zinc sheets covering the top and the sides and with casuarina poles but without any foundation nor walls.” The plaintiff was paying Rs. 25 per month as rent for the site. By March, 1961, the arrears of ground rent came to Rs. 375 and the tenant passed a letter Exhibit B-2 dated 29th March, 1961, acknowledging that the arrears amounted to Rs. 375, that the same would be paid before the end of April, that in default the landlord should take and become the owner of the zinc shed and that the tenant would not raise any objection. The language employed in the letter is to make the landlord the owner of the superstructure if the tenant defaulted to pay the arrears by the end of April. The tenant did not pay the arrears by the 30th of April, 1961, but he passed a letter Exhibit B-1 dated 1st May, 1961, in favour of the landlord. That letter expressly recites that the arrears of Rs. 375 had not been paid as per Exhibit B-2, that the zinc shed was put in possession of the landlord on that day in discharge of the arrears of Rs. 375 and that the zinc shed, therefore, became the property of the landlord and the tenant would have no kind of right whatsoever with regard to the zinc shed. It is common ground that on the same day, i.e., 1st May, 1961, the plaintiff became a tenant of the land together with the superstructure, agreeing to pay Rs. 25 per month, that for two months he paid Rs. 50, that from July to October he was in arrears, that the landlord, therefore, issued a notice Exhibit B-3 dated 9th November, 1961, claiming the arrears of rent from the month of July to October 1961 and also threatening the tenant with proceedings for eviction. The tenant sent a reply Exhibit B-4 dated 9th January, 1962, in which he admitted all the aforesaid facts and in particular, his having taken the land together with the shed on a rent of Rs. 25 on 1st May, 1961, his being in arrears from July to October. The tenant prayed for some time and also pleaded for reduction of rent to Rs. 15 per month thereafter. In this reply the tenant has assured the landlord that he would pay the arrears July to October as claimed within a very short time and prayed that in the interim no Court proceedings be taken against him and that he was passing that letter B-4 as proof of his bona fides. The tenant, however, did not keep up his promise and the landlord took proceedings under the Rent Control Act for evicting the tenant; the latter put forward a claim of title to the superstructure and the proceedings before the Rent Controller became infructous as the Rent Controller took the view that there was a bona fide dispute as to title. Shortly thereafter, the plaintiff, the tenant, brought the suit (out of which this second appeal arises) for a declaration that Exhibits B-2 and B-1 were signed by him without knowledge of their contents, that he is a Malayalee and did not know Tamil, that he never intended to give up his rights to the superstructure and his rights under the City Tenants Protection Act (hereafter referred to as the Act) and that in any event, the aforesaid documents would not operate as a conveyance of his rights over the superstructure as the documents are unregistered. Both the Courts concurrently found that the two letters were passed by the tenant fully knowing the contents and their implications. The Trial Court dismissed the plaintiff's suit holding that the two documents, Exhibits B-2 and B-1 did not require registration in the view that the zinc shed had no foundation and had no walls and no part of it was imbedded to earth. On this aspect, however, the lower appellate Court took the view that the zinc shed would amount to a building within the definition of section 2, su