BANWARI AND ANOTHER Vs. MOHAB SINGH AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is filed by Banwari and Ram Sarup, vendee-defendants. They had purchased the land in dispute on 14.8.1967 by two separate registered sale-deeds from Onkar who himself had purchased the same from Phul Singh vendor on 13.7.1967. The plaintiff-respondent, son of the vendor, sought to pre-empt the sale dated 13.7.1967 of the land in dispute in favour of Onkar, hereinafter referred to as vendee No. 1.

(2.) Vendees No. 2 Banwari and Ram Sarup, who were impleaded as defendants, resisted the suit on the ground that they being the tenants on the land in dispute on the date on which the first sale was effected by the vendor in favour of vendee No. 1 and also at the time when vendee No. 1 had effected the sale in their favour on 14.8.1967, so by virtue of section 17-A of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953, hereinafter referred to as the Act, the sale in their favour by vendee No. 1 was not pre-emptible.

(3.) The trial Court found that vendees No. 2, Banwari and Ram Sarup, were the tenants under the vendor upon the land at all relevant time. Onkar, vendee No. 1 could validly effect the sale of the land that he had purchased from the vendor in favour of vendees No. 2, Banwari and Ram Sarup, without attracting the doctrine of lis pendence. The trial Court also found that Banwari and Ram Sarup, vendees No. 2, were scheduled castes and sale in their favour by virtue of the Punjab Government notification No. 213-R/IV-62/1026, dated 2/3.2.1962, could not be pre-empted.