ABDUL SHAKUR Vs. ABDUL GHAFUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question raised in this appeal is a narrow one. In the suit, (sic) of which it has arisen, the plaintiff-appellants claimed to be entitled to pre-empt a sale of few bighas of land in Mauza Inampur, which were sold by the defendant Musammat Najiban to the defendants-respondents Abdul. Ghafur and Abdul Shakur. The parcel of land so sold comprised two plots Nos. 833 anti 834 and also a part of plot No. 836. The plaintiff is a share-holder in a plot of land No. 837, which adjoins portion of plot No. 836, which with the other two plots forms the subject-matter of the sale. The claim of the plaintiff to pre-empt is based on a provision of the wajib- ul-arz of the Tillage according to which it has been rightly held that the rule of the Muhammadan Law as to pre-emption applies. The plaintiff claims the right to pre- empt by virtue of vicinage. Plot No. 836, as we have said, adjoins the plaintiff's holding; plot No. 834 adjoins plot No. 836; and plot No. 833 adjoins plot No. 834. The subject-matter of the sale is, therefore, a compact parcel of land adjoining the land of the plaintiff.

(2.) Both the Courts below decreed the plaintiff's claim. A second appeal was preferred and the learned Judge who heard it modified the decrees of the lower Courts and gave a decree for pre-emption of the portion of plot No. 830 which formed part of the subject-matter of the sale and not of plots Nos. 833 and 834. Against his decree this appeal under the Letters Patent has been preferred.

(3.) The learned Judge of this Court, in dismissing the plaintiff's claim in regard to plots Nos. 83 5 and 834, bases his decision upon the fact that these plots do not adjoin plot No. 837 in his judgment he says: He (the plaintiff) is, therefore, entitled to claim pre-emption in regard to the one bigha, part of No. 836, sold by the vendor. As regards the other two plots, namely, Nos. 833 and 834, the map clearly shows that both these plots do not adjoin plot No. 837, by virtue of the ownership of which the plaintiff claims pre-emption, as plot No. 836 intervenes between them. Therefore, he has no right of vicinage as regards those two plots and his claim was not sustainable."