BABU PARAS RAM SINGH Vs. RAJ KUMAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These four connected appeals arise out of four separate suits for pre-emption. On 18 March 1925, Mt. Rajkali Kunwar sold 2 pies share in. 10 villages to three vendees Raj Kumar, Paras Ram and Ram Raj Singh for Rs. 500 without any specification of shares. The suits were decreed by the first Court on the ground that Ram Raj was a stranger, and the plaintiffs had therefore a right to pre-empt the property against all the vendees. The learned District Judge has allowed the appeals and dismissed the suits. His judgment is based on the findings that Raj Kumar is a recorded co-sharer, that Paras Ram although not recorded is the brother of Kagji who is a recorded cosharer and with whom he forms a joint Hindu family, and that Ram Raj is an ex-proprietary tenant in this mahal though not in the villages in which the shares are situated.

(2.) It is not disputed before us that Raj Kumar is a recorded cosharer. We must also accept the finding of the Court below that Paras Ram being joint with his brother Kagji is also a proprietor though not recorded as such. The finding that Ram Raj is an ex-proprietary tenant is challenged before us.

(3.) No doubt Ram Raj is recorded in the revenue papers as ex-proprietary tenant in three out of 10 villages, all of which lie in one mahal. But a mere entry of the name is by no means conclusive. Nor does the fact that Ram Raj has occupied this land professedly as an ex-proprietary tenant for so many years necessarily confer upon him the ex-proprietary tenancy, inasmuch as such tenancy is the creation of the statute and cannot be acquired otherwise.