TARAK NATH GAYEN Vs. PRAVAT KUMAR BEJ

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AN application for pre-emption under section 24 of the West Bengal Non-Agricultural tenancy Act having been allowed concurrently by the two courts below the preemptee has preferred the present revisional application. The point raised in this revisional application is a short one.

(2.) IT is not in dispute that plot 272 of khatian no 502 and plots nos. 270 and 271 of khatian no. 105 Mouza Patnabazar in the town of Midnapore belonged to two brothers Prabhat and Sanat in equal shares. On April 6, 1976 Sanat sold his undivided one half share in the said plots along with the building standing thereon to the respondents nos. 1 to 3 in the application for pre-emption (the petitioner before this Court ). That transfer was registered on June 26, 1976 and a notice of such transfer was served at the instance of the purchaser upon Prabhat on June 14, 1976. This led Prabhat to file an application for pre-emption under section 24 of the West Bengal Non-agricultural Tenancy Act out of which the present revisional application arises.

(3.) TO the application for pre-emption there was no substantial defence. The only defence that was sought to be placed at the trial was that the sale in favour of the pre-emptees having been effected with the alleged consent of Prabhat the pre-emptor Prabhat was estopped from enforcing his right of pre-emption. This objection failed in both the courts below on two grounds. In the first place, the tribunals below held that the preemptees could not substantiate their case of prabhat consenting to his brother's transfer in favour of the preemptees. The other ground on which such an objection was overruled that there can arise no QUESTION OF any estoppel by any conduct prior to the transfer because the right AT pre-emption being inchoate could arise only upon transfer and on the terms thereof. Reliance was placed upon a single Bench decision of this Court in the case of ASIT RANJAN DATTA v. TARAKESWAR SARKAR AND OTHERS, 74 C. W. N. 279.