Judgment :- This is a defendants appeal from a decree for ejectment passed against him. The dispute is about a shop which admittedly was let out to the appellant by the plaintiff respondent.

2. On 24th February 1948 a decree for arrears of rent was passed against the appellant. Previous to the institution of that suit the respondent had given a notice for payment of the arrears and appellant had sent the arrears by money order, but the money order had been refused by the respondent. Consequently the decree was passed without costs. Subsequently rent again fell into arrear and the respondent gave a notice to the appellant demanding the arrears that has fallen due since the passing of the decree on 24th February 1948, and also the arrears decreed on that date. The appellant sent only the arrears that had fallen due subsequent to the passing of the decree, within the period of one month. He did not send the decreed arrears but deposited them in Court after a month. The respondent thereupon sued the appellant for ejectment from the shop contending that he had wilfully defaulted in paying the arrears within a month of the receipt of the notice demanding the same. The suit was dismissed by the trial Court which held that there was no wilful default on the part of the appellant but has been decreed by the lower appellate Court on the ground that he committed wilful default in not paying the decreed arrears. The lower appellate Court took the view that the words arrears of rent in S.3(a), Control of Rent Act, include not only undecreed arrears, but also decreed arrears of rent.

3. Two questions arise : (1) Whether the words arrears of rent include decreed arrears of rent and (2) Whether the appellant committed wilful default.

4. The words arrears of rent have no technical meaning. Rent that is not paid on the date on which it falls due becomes an arrear of rent and it remains so even though a suit is brought for its recovery and decreed. The only effect of the passing of the decree is that the cause of action is merged in the decree and that the landlord can realise the decreed amount in a certain manner; it has not the effect of changing the arrear of rent into something other than arrear of rent. So long as the rent has not been paid, whether a decree has been passed for the same or not, it is rent in arrear. It remains rent even if a decree is passed, and so long as it is not paid it is in arrear. There is no reason for thinking that the words arrears of rent in S.3(a) mean only undecreed arrears of rent.

5. If a tenant can be ejected on the ground of his failure to pay undecreed arrears of rent within a month of the receipt of a notice of demand, there is all the greater reason for his being ejected on the ground of his failure to pay the arrears of rent within a month of the receipt of a notice of demand in spite of a decree for the same having been passed against him. A tenant who does not pay the arrears of rent in spite of a decree having been passed against him undoubtedly stands in a weaker position than one against whom no decree has been passed. Because the landlord can realize the decreed arrears by executing the decree, he gets no licence for not paying them at all, or unless a warrant of attachment or arrest is issued against him. The lower appellate Court rightly held that the appellant did not pay all the arrears of rent rightly demanded from him within a month of the receipt of the notice of demand.

6. The default of the appellant was undoubtedly wilful. It was deliberate or intentional and not caused by any accident or any circumstance beyond his control. He intended not to pay the decreed arrears of rent, why he intended so is absolutely irrelevant. What is material is the existence of the intention not to pay the demanded arrears and not the reason or motive for that intention. Therefore there arises no question of mala fides or dishonest intention.

7. In Gould v. The Mount Oxide Mines Ltd., 22 C.L.R.490, it was said by

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