D. Falshaw, C.J. - (1.) THIS is an appeal filed under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent against the order of Shamsher Bahadur, J., accepting. a second appeal and dismissing the suit of Somti Parkash Respondent, the decree of the trial Court In whose favour was upheld in first appeal.
(2.) THE Plaintiff's suit, which was for possession of 26 bighas of land, was filed in the following circumstances. The land in dispute was admittedly owned by Lachhmi Narain the father of Somti Parkash, but it was transferred by Lachhmi Narain to Somti Parkash and the mutation relating to the transfer was sanctioned on the 22nd of July, 1953. Thereafter Somti Parkash issued a notice of ejectment to Natha and Ram Kumar the Defendants in the suit, who had admittedly been cultivating the land as tenants under Lachhmi Narain. The notice of ejectment was contested by Natha and Ram Kumar by a suit instituted in the Court of the Assistant Collector at Narnaul on the 24th of September 1953 There is no doubt that in that suit in a sense they denied the title of Somti Parkash as landlord since they alleged that the transfer in his favour by his father was not bona fide and was intended only to defeat certain provisions of law It was not specified what these provisions of law were, but it would appear that the tenants had in mind the provisions of the Security of Land Tenures Act by which a calling was fixed on the holding of any landowner The suit of the tenants in the revenue Court was successful on the 30th of August 1956 and the notice of ejectment was cancelled. The victory of the tenants in the revenue Court was followed by the institution of the guilt from which the present appeal has arisen by Somti Parkash in the Civil Court for possession of the land in suit on the ground that the tenancy had been forfeited by the tenants by their denial of the Plaintiff's title as landlord. The trial Court and the first appellate Court upheld the Plaintiff's plea that the position taken by the tenants in the revenue Court amounted to be repudiation of his tide as landlord and incurred a forfeiture of the tenancy.
(3.) IN second appeal the learned Single Judge was of the view that although in a sense the tenants had denied the title of the landlord it wan not such a repudiation as involved forfeiture of the tenancy, and at the same time he held that the Plaintiff's suit must fail for want of notice to the tenants of the landlord's intention to exercise his rights of forfeiture. 8. I do not think that the decision of the learned Single Judge on the latter point can be sustained since, apart from the fact that this point does not seem to have been raised in the Courts below, the decision appears to run counter to the decision, of the Supreme Court in Namdeo Lokman v. Narmadabai, AIR 1983 SC 228. The provisions of the Transfer of Property Act do not apply to agricultural land and it had been held by a Division Bench in Rama Iyengar v. Gurusami Chetti, AIR 1010 Mad 867, with reference to Section 111(g) of the Transfer of Property Act, which requires notice in writing by the lessor of this intention to determine the lease in case the lessee renounces his character as such by setting up a title in a third person or claiming title in himself, that in cases not governed by the Transfer of Property Act the institution of a suit in ejectment is a sufficient determination of the lease where the lessee has forfeited the lease by denial of the landlord's title. This decision was approved by the learned Judges of the Supreme Court in the case cited above, and it was held that the provision in Section 111(g) as to notice in writing as a preliminary to a suit for ejectment based on forfeiture of a lease is not based on any principle of Justice, equity or good conscience.;