Judgment:1. The suit out of which this appeal arises was one for ejectment of a tenant from a house and for arrears of rent. The house belonged to two brothers, Debi Prasad and Lalta Prasad. In execution of a decree obtained by one Incha Ram against Debi Prasad he caused the whole house to be attached as the property of Debi Prasad; During the pendency of the attachment a suit was brought by Lalta Prasad for partition of the house, and he made Debi Prasad and Incha Ram parties to that suit. He obtained a preliminary decree from the High Court for partition subject to certain conditions, but, before the final decree of the High Court was made, the property was sold by auction and was purchased by Ram Chand, the predecessor in title of the plaintiffs. We may mention that Mathur Prasad, appellant, was a tenant in the house, having been put into it by Debi Prasad and Lalta Prasad. After the auction sale, however, on the 4th of May, 1914, Mathura Prasad executed a sarkhat (that is, an agreement to hold the house as tenant) in favour of Ram Chand, and in that document he distinctly stated that he took the house from Ram Chand on a rent of Rs. 3 per mensem, and that if Ram Chand wanted to have the house vacated he (Mathura Prasad) would vacate it on receipt of a month's notice. The present suit was brought to eject Mathura Prasad from the house after serving him with the requisite notice, and for arrears of rent. He resisted the suit on the ground that the house belonged not only to Debi Prasad, in whose shoes Rani Chand stood, but also to Lalta Prasad, and that therefore the plaintiffs were not entitled to eject him from the house. This contention was over-ruled by the courts below and a learned Judge of this Court has upheld the decree of the lower appellate court.
2. We think that the plaintiff's claim has been rightly decreed. Mathura Prasad having executed a sarkhat in favour of the plaintiffs' predecessor, Ram Chand, and having agreed to hold the house from him and to vacate it on receipt of notice from him to do so, he is estopped from denying the plaintiffs' title to get the house vacated. This case seems to be similar to that of a tenant who has taken a lease from one of two 'co-owners of certain property and agreed to surrender the property if called upon to do so by the person who granted the lease, In such a case it is not open to the tenant to dispute his landlord's title. We were referred to the case of Lal Mohamed v. Kallanus (1885) I.L.R., 11 Calc., 519. The circumstances of that case were different. Furthermore, this case was considered by the Calcutta High Court in the later case of Khetu Das v. Surendra Nath Sinha (1903) 7 C.W.N.,596, and the view taken in it does not seem to have been accepted. In our opinion, apart from the fact that there was nothing on the record to show that the partition decree made in favour of Lalta Prasad had become final, the defendant is precluded now from disputing the plaintiffs' title. We dismiss the appeal with costs.