Satish Chandra, J. - (1.) THE Defendant is the Appellant. The suit was for ejectment and recovery of arrears of rent and damages. Both the Courts below have decreed the suit on the finding that the Appellant was in arrears of rent for more than three months and had failed to pay the same inspite of service of notice of demand.
(2.) THE only point raised on behalf of the Appellant was that the notice of demand was not validly served on the Defendant. On the instructions of the Plaintiff landlord a lawyer sent a registered letter bearing on top the lawyer's address as the sender of the letter. The letter was returned to the lawyer with the postal endorsement that the addressee namely the Defendant -Appellant had refused to accept it. On this finding the Courts below drew a presumption of due service on the Defendant. The letter contained a combined notice of demand for arrears of rent as well as to quit Under Section 106, Transfer of Property Act. 2a. Learned counsel for the Appellant urged that when the registered letter was refused, no presumption of knowledge of the contents of that letter could in law be raised against the tenant even though he himself may have refused to accept it. In support reliance was placed upon the decision of K.B. Asthana, J. in Amarjit Singh Bedi v. Lachchman Das (S.A. No. 3420 of 1962 dt. 13 -4 -1964). In this case the learned Judge accepted the dicta of Beaumont, C.J. in Vaman Vithal Kulkarni's case ( : AIR 1935 Bom. 247). In that case it was observed: It seems to me impossible to say that a letter has been served so as to bring the contents to the notice of the person to whom the letter is addressed, if the agent for service states that in fact the notice was not served, although the reason may have been that the addressee declined to accept it. One cannot assume that because an addressee declines to accept a particular sealed envelope he has guessed correctly as to its contents. Hon'ble Asthana, J. held that in such circumstances no presumption of due service can be raised Under Section 114 of the Evidence Act. The learned Judge went on to observe that though there is a specific provision in the Code of Civil Procedure Under Rule 20 -A of Order 5 thereof for the raising of a presumption of due service even when summons sent by registered post are refused by the addressee, there was no provision for raising such a presumption under the Rent Control Act.
(3.) WE are unable to agree with either of the two premises upon which the learned Judge based his decision.;