Learned counsel for the respondent has placed reliance upon a decision of this court Hiralal Kapur v. Prabhu Choudhury - MANU/SC/0189/1988 : [1988]2SCR1058 . The tenant in this case seems to have sub-let a part of his tenant to a Trust which started its activities from the premises of which landlord may also have been aware. The tenant had also started paying the rent by two cheques - one in his name and another cheque of Trust. The rent so tendered was duly accepted by the landlord. In some correspondence which took place between the tenant and the landlord, the Trust was not accepted as a sub-tenant. It was held by this Court that merely by the fact that the cheque of the Trust was being accepted as a part of the amount of rent and the fact that landlord may have the knowledge of the fact that the Trust was using part of the premises would not lead to any implied inference or consent of sub-lease in favour of the sub-tenant. For this conclusion no doubt the letters of the landlord had also been referred to by which sub-tenancy was not accepted by the landlord yet the fact remains that Court did not come to the conclusion that that before writing of those letters it was to be taken a case of sub-tenancy by conduct. The fact is that knowledge of possession or a part of the accommodation with the Trust and the acceptance of the part of the rent by cheque from the Trust were not considered conclusive of an inference of consent for sub-tenancy. Yet another case relied upon by the learned counsel for the respondent is Ram Saran v. Pyare Lal and Anr. - MANU/SC/0596/1996 : [1996]1SCR501 equivalent to In this case also the tenant surrendered his tenancy rights in favour of a registered Society without consent of the landlord. The landlord had also started accepting the rent tendered by the tenant in the name of the registered society. It was held that no inference of authorised sub-tenancy could be drawn nor inference of implied consent and it was held that the landlord was not estopped from seeking eviction on the ground of unauthorised sub-letting. The conduct of the landlord in accepting the rent from the society was held to be of no consequence. We have already observed earlier that the inference drawn from findings of fact is a legal question. It would not amount to interfering or substituting the finding of fact by the revisional court. Hence the decision in the case of Ubaiba (supra) relied upon by the learned counsel for the appellant would not be of any assistance to it.
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
Civil Appeal No. 3158 of 2002
Decided On: 29.04.2002
P. John Chandy and Company (P) Ltd. Vs. John P. Thomas
Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
D.P. Mohapatra and Brijesh Kumar, JJ.
Citation: AIR 2002(SC) 2057
