Case: Sunder Singh And Ors Vs. Narain Singh And Ors

The appellants are vendees to the sale which was pre-empted. The facts found by the courts below are these. The property in suit consisted of agricultural land as well as some baras in village Jalalpur. Punnu Singh and Mansha Singh who were also parties to the suit as defendants sold the property in suit on January 15, 1955 to the appellants. Thereafter consolidation proceedings took place in this village and came to an end before the present suit was filed on January 14, 1956. Of the vendees, six had no share in the village from before while four already had some share in the village. As a result of the consolidation proceedings, six of the vendees who had no share in the village from before were allotted other land in place of the land which they had purchased under the sale-deed. The other four vendees who had some share in the village from before were allotted land in two blocks in lieu of the land they had in the village from before as well as the land which they had purchased by the sale-deed in question. The plaintiffs-respondents instituted the suit on the basis of their being collaterals and co-sharers and wanted that they should be given out of the land allotted to the vendees in consolidation proceedings such land as they would be entitled to after pre-emption of the sale in question2. The suit was resisted by the appellants on a number of grounds. The main ground of defence with which we are concerned in the present appeal was whether the suit was maintainable with respect to the land which had been obtained by the vendees during consolidation proceedings in lieu of the land which was the subject-matter of the sale-deed. The trial court held in favour of the plaintiffs-respondents and granted a decree for pre-emption. On appeal to the High Court by the vendees, the High Court held on the basis of S. 24 of the Patiala and East Punjab States Union Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, No. V of 2007 Bk. (hereinafter referred to as the Act), that it was open to the pre-emptor to follow the land which had been given to the vendees in consolidation proceedings in lieu of the land which was the subject-matter of the sale-deed. Further in the High Court another point was raised on behalf of four of the appellants who had land from before in the village and it was urged that in their case it was not possible to distinguish which land had been allotted to them in place of the land sold and therefore no pre-emption decree should be granted. This argument was also rejected by the High Court, and the appeal was dismissed. The High Court having refused the certificate, the appellants applied and obtained special leave from this Court; and that is how the matter has come before us.

Court's reasoning:
Clearly the effect of this provision is to give to the land-owner or a tenant at will the same right in the land which he acquires under the scheme of consolidation in lieu of that land which he had before the consolidation proceedings. He cannot get more right than he had before nor can he get any less rights.It is urged that that section only preserves the rights and has nothing to do with obligations to which the land may be subject. We are of opinion that this is not so. When the section lays down that the land-owner or a tenant at will shall have the same right in the land allotted to him in pursuance of the scheme of consolidation as he had in his original holding or tenancy, it clearly implies that obligations would also remain the same. If that were not so and if his obligations were to disappear he would acquire more right in the land allotted to him than he had in the original holding or tenancy. For example, if the land-owner had only a life interest in the original holding he would get the same life interest in the land allotted to him and could not claim to be absolute owner of the land allotted in consolidation proceedings. Thus the obligation which attached to his ownership of his original holding (namely, that it was subject to all the disabilities of a limited owner) would also apply to the land allotted to him in consolidation proceedings. Therefore, when S. 24 speaks of the land-owner or the tenant at will having the same right in the land allotted as he had in the original holding or tenancy, it brings in all the rights and obligations which were attached to his ownership of tenancy of the land originally heldThe consequence therefore is that the ordinary law of pre-emption under which the pre-emptor has the right to follow the land which is the subject-matter of the sale-deed becomes expanded and the land allotted to the land-owner or tenant at will in lieu of the land which may have been subject to pre-emption also becomes subject to pre-emption in the same way as the original holding or tenancy. So it follows that if the land allotted in lieu of the original holding or tenancy is pre-emptible under the law of pre-emption and the right of pre-emption still exists on the three dates to which we have already referred, the pre-emptor would by virtue of S. 24 be able to enforce his rights against land which may have been allotted to the vendee in lieu of the land which was actually the subject-matter of sale.We are, therefore, of the opinion that the construction of S. 24 by the High Court is correct and the plaintiffs-respondents have a right by virtue of S. 24 of the Act to pre-empt the land which was allotted to the appellants in lieu of the land which was the subject-matter of the sale-deedWe are of opinion that there is no force in this argument. It was necessary to enact S. 25 when dealing with leases, mortgages and encumbrances for without such a specific provision, a lease, mortgage or encumbrance which was on one piece of land could not in law attach to another piece of land.This however is very different from an incident of ownership of land e.g. liability to pre-emption which attaches to the land itself and continues to attach to the land allotted in lieu of the original holding or tenancy by S. 24. The special provisions, therefore, in S. 25 do not negative the inference that obligations which attach to the right of ownership of the original holding or tenancy would continue to attach to the land allotted in lieu thereof in consolidation proceedingsThe High Court has held - and we think rightly - that there should be no difficulty in finding out how much of the land allotted pertains to the land which was the subject-matter of the sale-deed. Land is always valued for purposes of allotment during consolidation proceedings and it would not, therefore, be difficult to find out how much land was allotted to these four vendees in place of the land which they got by the sale-deedWe have not permitted learned counsel to raise this point for the first time before us, as it was not raised in the High Court. We therefore reject this contention.