ORDER

Petitioner who is the plaintiff before the trial Court has filed the writ petition seeking for quashing the order dated 08.08.2022 passed by the Commercial Court at Annexure-A whereby the judgment has been passed on preliminary issues and suit has been dismissed.

2. Amongst the issues framed, issue Nos. 1 and 3 were tried as preliminary issues. The said issues are as follows:

"1. Whether the plaintiff proves that the tenancy of the defendant in respect of the schedule property has been lawfully terminated?

2. Whether the suit is premature?"

3. The facts that are made out is that the suit was filed by the plaintiff seeking for an order of ejection directing the defendants to quit, vacate, deliver and handover vacant physical possession of the schedule property. The plaintiff had also sought for arrears of rent, GST, interest on arrears of rent due apart from mesne profits.

4. The Court took note of the contentions in the written statement and sought to hear and try issue Nos. 1 and 3 as preliminary issues. The defendant had contended that notice dated 13.09.2021 terminating the tenancy with effect from 13.09.2021 and seeking for possession of the schedule property on or before 12.02.2021 is illegal and unlawful as the demised premises being a manufacturing unit, termination of tenancy must be done with six months notice.

5. The trial Court taking note of the contention of the defendant as made out in the written statement has observed that 15 days notice was not sufficient as the schedule property was an industrial manufacturing unit which fact was admitted by the plaintiff.

6. Learned counsel for the plaintiff submits that admittedly, the lease agreement dated 26.11.2019 was for a duration of 5 years from 01.02.2020 and as the said lease agreement was unregistered, same could not have been looked into and the stipulation regarding 6 months notice as regards the land leased for manufacturing purpose under Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 (for short 'the Act') could not be invoked as there was no valid lease and refers to provisions under Section 107 of the Act, which also stipulates that a lease of immovable property for a term exceeding one year can be made only by a registered instrument. It is submitted that when there is no valid lease, the requirement of 6 months notice under Section 106 of the Act cannot be invoked and that would be an appropriate manner of construing Section

106 of the Act along with Section 107 of the Act.

7. Reliance is placed on the judgment of the Supreme Court Samir Mukherjee vs. Davinder K. Bajaj and others - AIR 2001 SC 1696 and on the judgment of this Court in Prasanna vs. S. Nagalaxmi and others - AIR 2010 Karnataka 66 wherein, the Courts have opined that in the absence of valid lease as contemplated in 1st part of Section 107, 15 days notice would be sufficient even if the lease is for manufacturing purpose.

8. Heard both sides.

9. Admittedly, the lease agreement at Annexure-C is for a period beyond 11 months and as per Clause-2 of the Lease Agreement, it is described to be a lease for 5 years starting from 01.02.2020. If that were to be so, the lease agreement is required to be registered.

10. When a lease deed is not registered as required under Section 107 of the Act, the Apex Court in the case of Samir Mukherjee (supra) has clearly held that the embargo under Section 106 of the Act that the period of notice being 6 months, in the case of a lease of immovable property for manufacturing purpose would not apply. The discussion of the Apex Court in Paragraph Nos. 5 to 7 which is self explanatory reads as follows:

"5. Section 106 lays down a rule of construction which is to apply when the parties have not specifically agreed upon as to whether the lease is yearly or monthly. On a plain reading of this section it is clear that the legislature has classified leases into two categories according to their purposes and this section would be attracted to construe the duration of a valid le