Agarwala, J.The plaintiff-respondent, the Tata Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., sued to eject the defendant from a small area of land belonging to the company, alleging that the company was in possession until December 1926, when the defendant took wrongful possession and constructed a stable on it. The suit was brought in 1936.

2. The defendant pleaded that in 1921 he had asked the company to make a grant of land to him as a reward for his services to the company and that this was agreed to and he was put in possession of the land in dispute. The finding of the Court of appeal below is that the defence is true but that in 1924, the company demanded rent from the defendant and in October of that year the defendant set up a permanent rent free grant. The suit was instituted within 12 years of October 1924. The suit has been decreed by both the Courts below. The first Court held that the plaintiff was in possession until he was dispossessed by the defendant in December 1.926. The appellate Court did not agree with this finding and its own findings are not very clearly stated; but reading the judgment as a whole it appears to me that what the learned appellate Court has found is that the defendant was let into possession in 1921 as he alleges; that the terms on which he was to hold the land were not settled; that the servants of the company who let the defendant into possession had no power to grant more than a yearly lease and that as the defendant held the land as a tenant until at least October 1924, when he set up a permanent rent-free grant, the plaintiff cannot be held to have been out of possession until then. As the suit has been instituted within 12 years from that date the plaintiffs suit is within time.

3. It has now been contended on behalf of the defendant-appellant that what was granted to him was an absolute right to the land and that as this gift was void because the servants of the company who made it had no power to do so, and, it may be added because no registered document was executed to evidence the gift, the defendant was in possession adverse to the company from 1921, when he was lot into possession. If the grant to the defendant was in fact a gift, the contention now advanced on his behalf would be unassailable. In the judgment of the lower appellate Court it is said,

There is therefore no reason to disbelieve his story that he was given the land as a reward for his services.

4. It is contended that this is a finding of a gift to the defendant and not a grant of any kind of tenancy. It does not seem to me that the passage referred to was intended to have this effect at all. In para. 10 of the written statement the defendant purported to set out what, according to him were the "real facts" of this case. In that paragraph he stated that he had asked the company for a grant of land and that in ,1921, the general manager, the superintendent and the land officer of the company settled this land with the defendant permanently and rent-free. If those be the true facts, the defendant was clearly claiming a permanent rent-free tenancy and not any absolute right in the land. The language of para. 9 of the plaint, however, was referred to. There, the defendant stated that the defendant has "every title and interest on the land of Schedule A in the plaint." It is not the khas land of the plaintiff and the plaintiff is not entitled to get "khas possession". This, it is said, is a claim to the absolute right in the land and that the defendant did not claim a mere permanent tenancy. Reading the written statement as a whole, however, it seems to me that the real claim of the defendant was to a permanent rent-free tenancy and that there is nothing in the judgment of the appellate Court which comes to the contrary conclusion. The question therefore is whether the plaintiffs suit is within time if the defendants claim be correct. Now, a permanent lease can be granted only by a registered document.

5. The effect of noncompliance with the provisions of Section 107, T.P. Act, was referred to by Mohammad Noor J. in Aziz Ahmad, and Others Vs. Alauddin Ahmad, . That also was a case in which the defendant had been given possession under leases which were in contravention of Section 107. Mohammad Noor J. held:

Here by virtue of the leases which were in contravention of Section 107, T.P. Act, the defendant did take possession of the lease, hold property. The leases were perfectly valid leases for the year 1828 and for that year the defendant was their (the landlords) tenant.... The continuance of possession of the defendant after the termination of 1328 could not have been otherwise than the holding over by the defendant, and the provisions of Section 116, T.P. Act, are attracted.

6. Now applying that decision to the facts of this case it must be held that as the defendant was let into possession not as a donee but as a tenant, and as the permanent tenancy which he set up, and which apparently the appellate Court considered it was the intention of the plaintiff to grant him, fails as being in contravention of Section 107, T.P. Act, the status of the defendant orginated as that of a yearly tenant. After the expiration of the first year of this tenancy he was merely holding over with the consent of the company until, in 1924 they sought to assess rent on the land and the defendant denied their right to do so. "Whether the fact of that denial was to put an end to the tenancy and render the possession of the defendant adverse to the landlord from that date is not a question which requires consideration in this appeal. The company was in possession at least until after 1924 through the defendant and this suit has been instituted within 12 years from that date.

7. The appeal is therefore dismissed with costs. The cross objection is not pressed and is dismissed with costs.