JUDGMENT :- This second Civil Appeal arises out of a suit for ejectment from a house and recovery of arrears of rent. The suit was decreed by the trial Court and an appeal from the judgment and decree of the trial Court was dismissed.

2. The suit was instituted by Bhagwat Vithu Chowdhry (respondent in this appeal) against Smt. Vishnawati (appellant in this appeal) claiming that he had terminated the tenancy by notice to quit and had obtained the permission of the District Magistrate under Section 3 of the U. P. (Temporary) Control of Rent and Eviction Act, 1947 to get over the bar to the institution of the suit created under that section. Admittedly the appellant's husband Gaya Prasad Shukla was originally the tenant of the house on a monthly rent of Rs. 35 from its former owner Lala Mangli Prasad. The house was sold by Lala Mangli Prasad to one Smt Vidyawati. The latter in turn sold it to the respondent. After the purchase of the house, which professedly was for the purpose of his own residence, the respondent obtained the District Magistrate's permission dated 8-8-1966 to sue the tenant for eviction. He had already given a notice dated 24-3-1966 to the appellant terminating the tenancy and asking for vacation of the premises. The plaintiff filed a revision before the Commissioner but the same was dismissed on 20-1-1967. The suit was instituted the same day.

3. The suit was contested by the defendant-appellant on various grounds. The notice was said to be invalid since it was not given after grant of permission, and the permission to be invalid as the purchase was with full knowledge of the tenancy. Gaya Prasad Shukla, who had died about 10 years before suit, had left, besides his widow (appellant), three sons and daughters from her as also two sons from an earlier wife. Since permission had been obtained to file a suit against the widow and not the sons and daughters of Gaya Prasad Shukla and the notice terminating the tenancy had also been addressed to, and served upon, the widow alone, it was pleaded that the notice was bad for that reason and the permission was also illegal and without jurisdiction. The suit was also said to be not maintainable on the ground of the State Government having passed a stay order on the filing of a revision application by the defendant under Section 7-F of the aforesaid Act.

4. As to the plea of the notice being invalid on the ground that it was not given after the grant of permission by the District Magistrate, not again after the confirmation of the District Magistrate's order by the Commissioner, the learned Additional Munsif who tried the suit held that it was not necessary to give the notice after the grant of permission and that it could be given before that. The plea has not been pressed again at least in this Court, and for obvious reasons, as it has been held in several decisions of this Court that it is not necessary that the notice under Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act be given only after the permission to evict has been obtained. About the additional ground (raised by an amendment of the written statement) that the notice was bad because it had been both addressed to and served upon the appellant alone though Gaya Prasad Shukla had left other heirs and the tenancy devolved upon those other heirs also, the learned Munsif held that the appellant alone had been acting as, and asserting herself to be, the tenant and had for all practical purposes been recognised as the tenant and she was thus the sole tenant. He was further of the opinion that even if the sons and daughters had inherited the tenancy rights they had impliedly surrendered those rights in favour of their mother. For these reasons he held the notice to have been rightly given to the appellant alone.

5. Regarding the plea of invalidity of the permission, it was conceded before the learned Munsif on the defendant's side that permission granted against one co-tenant held good against all the co-tenants. He held that

Click Here to Read the rest of this document