BHIKHA RAM Vs. RAM SARUP

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Delay condoned. Special leave granted.

(2.) The constitutional validity of Section 15(1)(a) of the Punjab Pre-emption Act, 1913 was challenged on the ground that it offended the fundamental right guaranteed by Article 19(1)(f) in Ram Sarup v. Munshi, (1963) 3 SCR 858. A Constitution Bench of this Court upheld the validity holding that there was no infringement of Article -19(1)(f) of the Constitution. Thereafter, a host of writ petitions were filed in this Court under Article 32 of the Constitution challenging the constitutional validity of Section 15 on the ground that it infringed Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution. It may be mentioned that the mother State, the State of Punjab, had repealed the Act in 1973 but it continued to be in force in the State of Haryana which prior to 1966 was a part of the State of Punjab. Section 15 of the 1913 Act, as it originally stood, underwent substantial changes in 1960 and as amended read as under:

(3.) After the surgery, Section 15 underwent at the hands of this Court removing the offending parts in Atam Prakash's case (supra) what survives of Section 15 is that in the case of sale of agricultural land and village immovable property by a sole owner, the tenant alone can exercise the right of preemption. Where the sale is of a share out of joint land or property, and is not made by all the co-sharers jointly, only the other co-sharers and the tenants can exercise the right of pre-emption. Where the sale is of a land or property owned jointly and is made by all the cosharers jointly, the right to pre-empt survives to the tenants only. Since in the present case, we are concerned with sale by a single co-sharer and not by all the co-sharers jointly, the remaining part of Section 15(1)(b), with which we are concerned, reads as under: