1952 (10) TMI 52

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....was passed without costs. Subsequently rent again fell into arrear and the respondent gave a notice to the appellant demanding the arrears that has fallen due since the passing of the decree on 24th February 1948, and also the arrears decreed on that date. The appellant sent only the arrears that had fallen due subsequent to the passing of the decree, within the period of one month. He did not send the decreed arrears but deposited them in Court after a month. The respondent thereupon sued the appellant for ejectment from the shop contending that he had wilfully defaulted in paying the arrears within a month of the receipt of the notice demanding the same. The suit was dismissed by the trial Court which held that there was no wilful default....

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....there is all the greater reason for his. being ejected on the ground of his failure to pay the arrears of rent within a month of the receipt of a notice of demand in spite of a decree for the same having been passed against him. A tenant who does not pay the arrears of rent in spite of a decree having been passed against him undoubtedly stands in a weaker position than one against whom no decree has been passed. Because the landlord can realize the decreed arrears by executing the decree, he gets no licence for not paying them at all, or unless a warrant of attachment or arrest is issued against him. The lower-appellate Court rightly held that the appellant did not pay all the arrears of rent rightly demanded from him within a month of the ....

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....as an element of crime. Reid J. said : "Wilfully and knowingly can be taken only as meaning deliberately and with knowledge and not something which is careless or negligent or inadvertent." Another provision making it an offence for anyone to fail 'wilfully" to pay a tax or make a return came up for discussion in Spies v. U. S. A., 317 U. S. 492 : (87 L. E. 418). It was observed in that case that 'mere voluntary and purposeful' as distinguished from accidental, omission to make a timely return might meet the test of wilfulness. "But in view of the traditional aversion to imprisonment for debt, the Supreme Court understood the word 'wilful' to include some element of evil motive and want of justific....

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....punishing a person who "shall wilfully trespass upon a railway". His plea that he believed the land to be a public thoroughfare and that consequently he was not a wilful trespasser was rejected because he 'intentionally and purposely stayed on the railway land although fancying that he was entitled to remain there. "Wilful default" was discussed by the Court of Appeal in Re Mayor of London and Tubb's Contract, (1894) 2 oh. 524. There was default in that case but as it was not intentional but due to an oversight and that too an oversight easily accounted for, it was held to be a perversion of the word "wilful" to hold it wilful. Lopes L. J. said on p. 538 : "If it were treated as wilful there woul....