AHMED HOSSAIN Vs. BASHARAT ALI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by special leave is from the judgment and order dated June 29, 1976 passed by the High Court Division in Civil Revision Case No. 481 of 1969. Leave was granted to consider the question as to whether intervention of a public pathway severs contiguity as contemplated under section 96 of the State Acquisition and Tenancy Act, 1950.

(2.) Facts relevant for consideration of the question are that the appellant petitioners purchased several parcels of land from five raiyati holdings by a registered kabala dated May 5, 1965. Respondents No. 1 to 5 claiming to be tenants of the holdings, contiguous to the lands transferred and described in the schedules to the application, prayed for pre-emption under section 96 of the State Acquisition and Tenancy Act, 1950, hereinafter referred to the as "the Act". Schedule 1 consists of a tank only. The appellants contested the pre-emption case on various grounds, inter alia that absence of contiguity between the lands by reason of existence of a public pathway, prayer for pre-emption could not be allowed. The Sub-ordinate Judge accepted the pre-emptor's case of having land contiguous to schedule 1 land only, allowed pre-emption in respect of the plots. He held that the pathway admittedly being belonging to the government and there being no adverse possession against the government, it will not be a case of intervening land belonging to others to deprive the pre-emptor from claiming pre-emption on the ground of contiguity. On appeal, the order of pre-emption was affirmed. On revision a Division Bench of the High Court refused to interfere in the matter and approved the view taken by the Courts below. The disputed lands are in five different holdings recorded in different khatians and the plots are also not in one compact block but are close to each other in a zigzag way and the pre-emptors have only land on the north of schedule 1 (tank), intervened by a public pathway belonging to the government. The public pathway has been recorded separately in the khas khatian of government. The Subordinate Judge considered the pathway as a 'hyphen', and as there is no case of adverse possession against the government. According to him "the pathway will not be blocked to the contiguous landholder who has come to claim pre-emption of the adjoining path way and that the pathway legally be understood as a hyphen. "The Additional District Judge considered the pathway as "to be a part, and parcel of the tank, because, the pathway is the only entrance to the tank. The learned Judge of the High Court Division repelling the contention of the pre-emptees that the government pathway severed contiguity between the pre-emptors' land and schedule 1 tank observed:

(3.) A person claiming pre-emption on the ground of having land contiguous to the land transferred can succeed only when he satisfies the requirement of the statute. What sense the expression "contiguous to the land transferred" purports to convey is to be determined with reference to the different provisions of section 96 of the Act, otherwise, consideration of the expression solely on the basis of the dictionary meaning of the word 'contiguity' or ''contiguous" may lead to a conclusion which may not be consistent with the language of statute and in conformity with the object of the legislation. When a phraseology of an enactment is clear and unambiguous and capable of one and only one interpretation, it is not open to the Court to give a different interpretation, with a view to carry out which is supposed to be the intention of the legislature. But if the phraseology used in the statute or in a section of the statute is capable of two interpretations, the interpretation which is consistent with the object of the enactment is to be preferred to the interpretation that would nullify that object. In interpreting a word or phraseology used in a statute the Court is to presume that the legislature has used the word with a purpose. It is an accepted canon of interpretation that the words in a statute must be taken to be used correctly and exactly, and not loosely or inexactly. Dictionary may be referred to just find out the ordinary meaning of the word used in the English language, but interpretation by relying on dictionary has been deprecated. To find out the sense "contiguous carries, it is to be considered in what context the word has been employed in the statute, and in doing so, if necessary, dictionary may be referred only to find out the ordinary meaning of the word.