- (1.) THIS appeal arises out of a suit for ejectment and damages or mesne profits. The suit has been decreed by the trial court and hence this appeal by the defendant. The defendant, which is a limited company, now in liquidation, and represented by its Liquidator, was a tenant in respect of the disputed premises No. 10, Mandeville Gardens, Ballygunj, District 24-Parganas. That tenancy was a monthly tenancy according to the English calendar and it began under the plaintiffs' predecessor Dr. Sarat Chandra Das Gupta, since deceased, and continued after his death at a rental of Rs. 429/- per month.
(2.) ON the allegations, inter alia, that the defendant's above tenancy has been duly determined under the law by an appropriate notice to quit, served in or about the first week of March, 1954, requiring the defendant to vacate the disputed premises on the expiry of the said month, and that the defendant had defaulted in the payment of rent for much over six months, to wit, from July 1952 to March 1954, so as to deprive itself of the protection of the Rent Control Act, 1950, by which admittedly the suit was governed, the plaintiffs brought the present suit on May 18, 1954.
(3.) THE suit was contested by the defendant company and its material defense, so far as the present appeal is concerned, was to the effect that it was not a defaulter, as alleged in the plaint, and was entitled to the protection of the Rent Control Act. On this point, the defendant's specific case was that the rent for July 1952 having been tendered to plaintiff No. 1 Mrs. Amiya Prova Das Gupta (who, according to the defendant, was the sole landlord, at feast for purposes of the Rent Control Act, rents, since Dr. Das Gupta's death, leaving been paid and received by her up to June, 1952) and that tender having been refused by her, the said rent for July, 1952, was deposited with 1he Rent Controller duly and in accordance with law and such deposit had continued, all along ever since, month by month regularly according to the English calendar.;