PANCH GUJAR GAUR BRAHMANS Vs. AMARSINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE respondents 1 and 2 sued the appellants for possession of certain house property situated in the town of Bundi and more fully described in the plaint in enforcement of their right of pre-emption.

(2.) IT was alleged that the house of the plaintiff-respondents No. 1 and 2 was situated adjoining the house property sold by respondents 3 to 5 to the appellants on 27-7-1946 and the plaintiffs as soon as they came to know of the sale offered to pay the same price to the vendees and asserted their rights of pre-emption. IT was alleged that the vendors and the vendees failed to comply with the request of the plaintiffs. The suit was instituted on 4-3-1947. The vendors did not put in appearance but the suit was contested by the vendees. They denied that the plaintiffs were owners of the adjoining property. They pleaded that the plaintiffs had failed to perform the requisite Talabs and further alleged that the plaintiffs had declined to purchase the property and were estopped from putting forward their claim.

(3.) IN the first place, the fundamental rights conferred by the provisions of Part 3 of the Constitution are not conferred, subject to what may be contained in other parts of the Constitution. The restrictions, subject to which the fundamental rights are to be enjoyed, are contained in Part III Itself. Therefore, the fact that Customary law continues to remain in force by virtue of Article 372 will not save it from, being declared void if it is hit by Art 13 of the Constitution. Secondly, as the opening words of Article 366 of the Constitution say, the words defined in that Article are to be assigned the particular meaning unless the context otherwise requires. The context in Article 19 (5) requires that the words "existing law" should be understood in their broad sense as including any kind of law & there is no doubt that the restrictions imposed by any customary law cannot be more sacrosanct than the restrictions imposed by Statute law and if they are unreasonable they would be void under Article 13 of the Constitution.