Present: Fisher C.J. and Drieberg J.

AUNERIS v. ARALIS.

266-D. C. Galle, 23,315.

    Lease-Lessee on informal writing-Notice to quit-Subsequent notarial lease-Action for ejectment.

An informal lessee of land is not entitled to formal notice in the same way as a monthly tenant before he can be evicted by a person who has taken a subsequent notarial lease of the land.

It is sufficient if the action is brought one month after the. informal lessee has been given notice to leave.

APPEAL from a judgment of the District Judge of Galle. F. de Zoysa, K. C. (with Rajapakse), for first defendant, appellant.

Soertsz, for plaintiff, respondent.

December 14,1928. DRIEBERG J.-

The respondent sued on a deed of lease of October 27, 1924, for two blocks of rubber land : (1) Totupolagahawatta and (2) Tembili-gahawatta for five years granted by the second defendant, the owner of them.

On January 7, 1922, the second defendant leased them on an informal writing 1 D 1 to the appellant for a term of four and a half years expiring on July 6,1926.

The spondent says that he was given possession of the first land, but that the appellant wrongfully took the coupons of it for the " first half of 1925, and wrongfully remained in possession of the second land until the end of the term of 1 D 1, July, 1926.

The learned District Judge held that the appellant's detention of the coupons of the first land and his possession of the second after the respondent's lease was unlawful, and that the appellant was entitled to recover damages in respect of both lands for the first half of 1925, and in respect of the second land up to July, 1926, he gave the respondent judgment for Rs. 462. The appellant has not shown that this assessment of damages is not right.

The action was brought on January 10, 1926. It is quite clear that after the execution of the lease to the respondent the latter and the second defendant made active efforts to get the land from the appellant-correspondence between the parties and the Rubber Controller end the Government Agent is in evidence. From P 2 it appears that on January 14, 1925, the respondent asked the Rubber Controller to give him the coupons for these lands which were then being issued to the appellant. The respondent got possession of the first land, and the coupons for it were issued to him from July, 1925. The appellant continued to hold the second land and got coupons for it until he surrendered them when his lease expired in July, 1926

The second defendant says that the appellant paid him rent for two years only and that on two occasions-one two months and the other one month before the lease to the respondent-he gave the appellant notice of his intended lease. His evidence that he gave this notice has been accepted, but the Judge has not accepted his-evidence that the appellant failed to pay rent after two years. In the writing 1 D 1 the second defendant acknowledged the receipt of rent for the whole term of four and a half years.

Now, though it is beyond doubt that for a year before the action was brought the respondent and the second defendant were making every endeavour to secure the lands and disposses the appellant by getting the coupons, without which the mere possession of the lands would be of comparatively little value to the appellant, and though they ousted him from the actual possession of the first land in January, 1925, and secured the rubber coupons for it from July, 1925, the appellant claims that he was not in wrongful possession of the land after the lease to the respondent. He says that as a person in possession on an informal and invalid lease he was in the position of a monthly tenant and that he was entitled to continue in possession until his tenancy was determined by due notice from the second defendant.

The trial proceeded, apart from the question of damages, mainly on the second issue. " Did the first defendant receive