Y.B. Bhatt, J.

1. to 3. xxx xxx xxx.

4. to 7. xxx xxx xxx.

5. It requires to be noted that there is no dispute that the suit notice was served upon the defendant, and that the said notice was also received by him. This witness (Rasilaben Popatlal Soni mother of the plaintiff-landlord) emphatically denies the version of the tenant that the tenant had come with another person to tender the rent then due (Rs. 320/-) and that she refused to accept it.

7. In this context it is relevant to examine the contention of the defendant taken in the written statement that two days after receipt of the statutory notice he had gone with one Jehangirbhai to tender the amount to the landlord and that they had taken with them Rs. 320/-. This assertion itself indicates that the defendant had believed that the demand for Rs. 320/- being the arrears of rent for 8 months was due and payable, as asserted in the suit notice. This, therefore, completely sets at naught the defence of the tenant that on the date of the suit notice the arrears was only in respect of four months. If this was the genuine belief of the tenant, he would have approached the landlord with an amount of Rs. 160/- being the rent for four months.

8. In the ultimate conclusion the Lower Court was justified in discarding the oral assertion of the tenant that he had gone to pay to the landlord the rent demanded in the statutory notice, which the landlord had refused.

9. In view of the aforesaid findings it becomes obvious that on the date of the statutory notice the tenant was in arrears of rent of more than six months, that in spite of receipt of the suit notice he had neither paid nor deposited in court the arrears of rent, and had not raised any dispute as to the standard rent within a period of 30 days from the date of receipt of the statutory notice. It may be noted that it is by now well settled law that raising a dispute as to standard rent for the first time in the written statement is no consequence and would not in any way assist the tenant in taking the case out of the operation of Section 12(3)(a) the Bombay Rent Act.

xxx xxx xxx.