- (1.) THIS is the defen dant's second appeal.
(2.) THIS dispute in this case relates to a house situate in the district of Gonda of which the respondent Abdul Wahab is the landlord and in which the appellant Mushiyat Ullah has been living as a tenant on his behalf. The respondent brought a suit against the appellant Mushiyat Ullah for ejectment of this house and for reco very of arrears of rent alleging that he had sent a registered notice on 10-4-1969 at the Gorakhpur address of the appellant which was received back with an endorsement of refusal by the postman. The suit was re sisted on a variety of grounds, one of which was that no notice, as alleged for the res pondent-plaintiff, was ever served upon the appellant nor was it ever refused by him. It is not necessary for the purpose of this ap peal to notice the other grounds of defence. The trial Court raised a presumption of ser vice of the notice under Section ] 14 of the Evidence Act and Section 27 of the Gene ral Clauses Act and decreed the suit for ejectment with costs. On appeal, the judg ment and the decree of the trial Court were affirmed and, therefore, the defendant comes to this Court. The appeal raises a short ques tion. The learned Counsel for the appel lant canvassed only one point: It was urged that the courts below were wrong in raising the presumption of service of notice under Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act on the basis of Section 27 of the U. P. General Clauses Act and Section 114 of the Evidence Act. The learned Counsel point ed out that although it was held by a Full Bench of this Court in Ganga Ram v. Smt. Phulwati, 1970 All WR (HC) 198 = (AIR 1970 All 446 (FB)) that when it is found that a notice under Section 106 of the Trans fer of Property Act was sent by registered post by the landlord to the correct address of the tenant, but was received back by the landlord undelivered with an endorse ment made by some one in the post office that the addressee had refused to take the notice on a particular day, the presumption under Section 114 of the Evidence Act as well as Section 27 of the General Clauses Act about service of such a notice can be rightly made in law, but the learned Coun sel points out that it was held by the Full Bench that this presumption of law under S. 27 of the General Clauses Act and the presumption of fact under S. 114 of the Evi dence Act were not conclusive but were re-buttable presumptions and according to the learned Counsel the error of the Lower Ap pellate Court lays in not applying its mind to the question whether the presumptions which arose under Section 27 of the Gene ral Clauses Act and Section 114 of the Evi dence Act had been rebutted by the defen dant-appellant's sworn statement. The second submission of the learned Counsel in this connection is that no presump tion under Section 114 of the Evidence Act and Section 27 of the General Clauses Act could arise in law in the present case as the property in dispute was situate in the dist rict of Gonda, which was the place of per manent residence of the appellant, and the notice admittedly was not sent by his per manent address but by the Gorakhptir ad dress. In other words, the argument is that for a presumption to arise Tinder Section 27 of the General Clauses Act and Section 114 of the Evidence Act, the notice must be shown to have been sent by permanent ad dress of the tenant:- To take the last point first, I find no warrant for the submission that the pre sumption which arises under Section 114 of the Evidence Act and Section 27 of the General Clauses Act must be confined to cases where the registered notice was sent by a permanent address of the tenant and was received back undelivered by the land lord with an endorsement of refusal by the postman. At any rate, this argument is not supported by any observation made in the Full Bench case of Ganga Ram v. Smt. Phul-wati (Supra). In that case the Court held that the presumption under Section 27 of the General Clauses Act and Section 114 of the Evidence Act arises whenever a notice by registered post is sent by the landlord to the correct address of the tenant and has been received back undelivered with an endorsement of his refusal by the nost office that the addressee had refused to take the notice on a particular date. Sec tion 27 of the U. P. General Clauses Act also does not contain anv words which may support the argument that the presumption arises only when the not'ice is sent by per manent address of the addressee by registered post. The \yordings of Section 27, on the other hand, are "the service shall be deemed to be effected by properlyaddressing........" The words "properly addressing" are so wide as to imply any correct address of the tenant for the time being. It cannot be disputed that the notice Ext. 4 was sent by the correct Gorakhpur address of the appel lant. The appellant admitted in his cross-examination that he is the agent of a Toba cco factory and has to remain out for long periods and in connection with his itinerary, he visits Gorakhpur also and stays there at a house Nafis Manzil in Moh. Turkmanpur. It is, therefore, clear that the notice was sent by the appellant's correct Gorakhpur address. That being so, the presumption of service arose under Section 27 of the Gene ral Clauses Act and Section 114 of the Evi dence Act.
(3.) TURNING to the second submission no doubt the lower appellate Court did not in so many words hold that the presump tion which arose in this case had not been rebutted, but made observations which im plied that the statement of the defendant-, appellant in denial of service or refusal of the notice was disbelieved. The only evi dence which was produced on the appel lant's side consisted of his oxvn statement. The defendant denied having received any notice or having refused any notice. He was a highly interested witness and this statement amounted only to a bare denial of the respondent's case of refusal of the notice. A bare denial does not amount in law to sufficient evidence so as to constitute rebuttal of the presumption. There was no suggestion made by the defendant in his statement that he was not present at Gorakhpur on 18th April, 1969 when the endorsement of refusal was made by the postman. I, therefore, hold that there was no rebuttal of the presumption which was raised in this case. Similar view was taken by this Court in Salik Ram Sahu v. Bin-deshwari Ram Rauniyar, 1965 All LJ 839 and Asa Ram v. Ravi Prakash, 1966 All LJ. 421. I find no force in this argument that the presumption about service of notice was incorrectly raised by the Lower Court.;