TMI Blog1968 (1) TMI 62X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ia House and was in occupation of the Show-Room and other parts of the building, while a part of it was occupied by Messrs. Kanwar Brothers Ltd. as sub-lessee of the Company. According to the firm, the agreement to sub-lease, or the sub-lease on the basis of which possession was claimed by the firm from the Company, is evidenced by three documents, the first one of which is letter, Ext. P.1, dated 20th February, 1950, written by K. S. Bhatnagar, appellant No. 2, on behalf of the firm, to U. A. Basrurkar, respondent No. 1, who was the Managing Director of the Company. The second document is letter, Ext. P.2, dated 22nd February, 1950, written by respondent No. 1 Basrurkar to appellant No. 2 Bhatnagar; and the third document is Ext. P.3, which purports to be notes on agreement arrived at between Basrurkar and Bhatnagar on 22nd February, 1950. The case of the firm was that, though these documents did not purport in so many words to be an agreement of sub-lease to be granted by the Company to the firm, in substance and in fact, the agreement arrived at was of a sub-lease in respect of the premises mentioned above. Since, under the Delhi and Ajmer Merwara Rent Control Act 19 of 1947, if ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n the sub-lease, the Company did not give possession of that portion of the leased property to the firm and also started obstructing the use of those portions of the property by the firm of which the firm had secured possession by 1st April, 1950. A stage came when the firm was completely dispossessed from the property leased and, ultimately, after giving notices, the firm instituted a suit on 18th June, 1952. The principal prayer in the suit was for delivery of possession in respect of all the three portions of the leased property. Then, there was a claim for damages to the extent of Rs. 10,000/- in respect of loss incurred on account of dispossession and obstruction in use of the leased property at the instance of the Company. Injunctions were also sought restraining the Company from interfering with the rights of the firm and with their uninterrupted use of the leased property. There were further prayers for other consequential injunctions which need not be described in detail. 2. On behalf of the Company and its Directors, the plea put forward was that there was no agreement of sub-lease or a completed sub-lease between the Company and the firm and that, in fact, all that to ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... eserved in respect of this lease. Even these submissions were made on the basis that the terms of the lease have to be ascertained from the three documents Exts. P. 1, P. 2 and P. 3 which were relied upon by the firm to claim the relief in the suit. It appears to us that, if these documents are properly interpreted, an inference necessarily follows that the lease, if any, brought into existence by these documents was certainly for a period exceeding one year. Since reliance was placed on these documents on behalf of the firm to urge that there was a completed lease, learned counsel for the firm was asked to point out the provision which fixed the rent payable in respect of the leased property. The only provision, on which he relied to show that rent had, in fact, been agreed upon the fixed, was para 1 of Ext. P. 3 which contains notes on agreement dated 22nd February, 1950. That paragraph is as follows :- Profit share of party No. 1 would be 10% of net profit of New Delhi business only and will be settled at the end of the 1st closing of the financial year which would be 30th June, 1951. 5. Accepting this submission that this paragraph lays down the rent payable, it is clea ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... , s. 107 of the Transfer of Property Act becomes applicable, irrespective of the question whether it was a lease from month to month or from year to year. The High Court was, therefore, quite correct in holding that on the basis of this lease the reliefs claimed by the firm could not be granted to it. 7. In these circumstances, an argument was put forward on behalf of the firm that, though this contract to lease had not been registered, the firm could claim possession under it in view of the provisions of s. 53A of the Transfer of Property Act, because, in this case, the Company would be debarred from enforcing against the firm any right in respect of that property of which the firm had already taken possession, viz., part of the Show-Room and a portion of the Balcony. In our opinion, this argument proceeds on an incorrect interpretation of s. 53A, because that section is only meant to bring about a bar against enforcement of rights by a lessor in respect of property of which the lessee had already taken possession, but does not give any right to the lessee to claim possession or to claim any other rights on the basis of an unregistered lease. Section 53A of the Transfer of Prop ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on as to the correctness of the view taken by the Allahabad High Court, we have to point out that the interpretation put on s. 53A of the Transfer of Property Act even by that Court is of no assistance to the firm in the present case. In this case, the firm is seeking to enforce rights under the unregistered lease and to seek a decree for possession against the lessor. The Allahabad High Court in that case proceeded on the basis that the plaintiff of that suit was in the position of a defendant and was only seeking to protect his rights by resort to the provisions of s. 53A of the Transfer of Property Act, so that no principle was laid down by the High Court that s. 53A is available to a lessee otherwise than as a defence. We are unable to accept the submission that the judgment in that case should be read as recognising a right of a lessee to enforce rights on the basis of an unregistered lease by resort to that provision of law. In fact, if that case be interpreted as laying down such a principle, it must be held that it has been directly over-ruled by the decision of the Privy Council in the case of Probodh Kumar Das and Others 66 I.A. 293 and is not correct. That decision may b ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the firm was entitled to contend that these documents Exts. P. 1 to P. 3 constituted an agreement in writing to lease the property in suit and could claim specific performance of this contract. There are three reasons why we are unable to accept this submission. The first is that, in the plaint itself, no specific performance of contract was claimed on behalf of the firm. Though the pleadings included averments about this contract, the relief claimed was for a decree for possession, damages and injunctions. These reliefs could only be claimed on the basis of a completed lease and could not be the reliefs in a suit for specific performance of a contract to lease. The second reason is that, as mentioned by us earlier, the firm itself came forward with the case that the entire contract was not included within these three documents Exts. P. 1 to P. 3, because, at the stage when these documents came into existence, the Managing Director of the Company had no authority to enter into such a contract on behalf of the Company and that the contract was only completed subsequently when the Board of Directors passed a resolution authorising the Managing Director to enter into such a contract ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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