Dwivedi, J. - (1.) Two questions arise in this appeal : (1) What is the true construction of Section 3 (1) (a) of the U. P, Temporary) Control of Rent and Eviction, Act and (2) whether the landlord should be deemed to have waived his right to sue for ejectment of the tenant.
(2.) It is necessary to state only a few material facts for the decision of these questions. The respondent is the landlord of a certain accommodation. The appeallants are his tenants. The tenants were in arrears of rent for much more than three months. On April 21, 1965 the landlord gave notice to them demanding payment of rent up to March 31, 1965, within a month of the service of the notice. This notice of demand was issued under Section 3 (1)(a). The tenants did not pay the rent within the said period. But on May 27, 1965, rent not only for the period demanded by the landlord but also for the subsequent two months of April and May 1965 was remitted by a money order. On May 31, 1965, the landlord received the money order amount. On June 15, 1965 he served a notice under Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act on the tenants to quit the accommodation on account of their default to pay the arrears of rent within one month of service of the notice of demand. Thereafter he instituted the suit out of which this appeal has arisen for their ejectment. The courts below decreed his suit for ejectment. They decided against the tenants on both questions.
(3.) Section 3 (1) (a), in so far as it is material provides ".......no suit shall............be filed in any civil court against a tenant for his eviction from any accommodation, except on one or more of the following grounds:- (a) that the tenant is in arrears of rent for more then three months and has failed to pay the same to the landlord within one month of the service upon him of a notice of demand....." On the first question, the argument is that the language of clause (a) shows that the tenant should be in arrears of rent for more than three months not only at the time of the service of the notice of demand upon him but also at the time of the institution of the suit. This interpretation is pegged on the word 'is' in clause (a). But this interpretation misses the significance of the latter part of clause (a). The clause, read as a whole, lifts the ban against the institution of a suit on the tenant's failure to pay three months' arrears within one month of the service of the notice of demand. In the context of the latter part of clause (a) it seems to us that 'is' should be interpreted as 'was' to indicate that the tenant was in arrears of rent for more than three months at the time of the service of notice on him, Zareefshan v. Mukhtar Ahmad, 1964 A.L.J. 148 .;