RABINDRANATH DE Vs. MANICK CHANDRA SASMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These review petitions are directed against the common judgment and order dated July 23, 2004 passed by a learned single Judge of this Court, whereby His Lordship was pleased to dismiss three revisional applications (C.O. Nos.1779 to 1781 of 1999) under Article 227 of the Constitution of India filed by the petitioner. In the revisional applications, the petitioner impugned separate but more or less identical judgments and orders dated March 12, 1999 passed by the Additional District Judge, 2nd Court, Hooghly on Misc. Appeal Nos. 108 to 110 of 1989, whereby the judgments and orders under appeal dated August 26, 1989 passed by the learned Munsif, 2nd Court, Arambagh on J. Misc. Case Nos. 110 to 112 of 1980 were set aside and, consequently, the applications under Section 8, West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955 (hereafter the Act) filed by the petitioner stood dismissed.

(2.) The short point that arose for decision before the learned Munsif was whether an application under Section 8 of the Act at the instance of the petitioner, a co-sharer of un-partitioned land adjoining the land transferred, was maintainable or not. The learned Munsif recorded a finding that the "adjoining lands possessed by the petitioner have longer common boundary than the adjoining lands possessed by the opposite parties" and allowed the applications based on the view "that the possession of one co-sharer will be deemed to be the possession of other co-sharers". The learned Additional District Judge reversed the judgments and orders under appeal relying on the decision of a learned single Judge of this Court in Smt. Rekha Rani Maity & ors. v. Jagatpal Sashmal, 1995 WBLR 263, wherein His Lordship held that when there is no partition, it cannot be held that the pre-emptors are holding land adjoining the land transferred.

(3.) Dr. Indrajit Mandal, learned advocate for the petitioner contended that while dismissing the revisional applications, His Lordship did not notice the judgment of a learned single Judge of this Court in Smt. Bula Kundu v. Sri Nirmal Kumar Kundu and anr, 2000 1 CalHN 505, wherein the decision in Rekha Rani Maity (supra) was considered and it was ruled that in an application for pre-emption on the ground of adjoining ownership, it is not necessary that the applicant must be the full owner of the adjoining holding; even a co-sharer of the adjoining holding may apply for pre-emption. According to him, this decision was directly on the issue raised by the petitioner and, therefore, the impugned judgment and order suffers from an error apparent on the face of the record for which it ought to be reviewed and the revisional applications reheard. The Court's attention was also invited to the decision in Ramgati Khan v. Gobinda Chandra Khan, 2006 4 CalHN 328, wherein another learned single Judge of this Court held that the objection raised to the effect that the pre-emptor being a coowner of the contiguous plot cannot exercise his right of pre-emption cannot be sustained in view of the decision in Bula Kundu (supra).