MUHAMMAD TUFAIL and others vs MUHAMMAD IKHTIAR KHAN and others

ORDER

' ABDUL SHAKURUL SALAM, J.---Pre-emptor seeks leave to appeal against the revisional order of the Lahore High Court dated 31-10-1989 whereby decree in his favour by the trial and appellate Courts were set aside and his suit dismissed.

2. The relevant issue was whether the petitioner had preferential right. It was based on the ground that the suit land was situated in Patti Yousaf where he owned land, whereas the respondent vendee owned land in another Patti Miani of the same estate. Each Patti having a separate Lamberdar and Revenue Patwari constituted a separate and independent Sub-Division of the village.

3. The learned Judge in the High Court held that: If the criteria of homogeneity of area or descent of the proprietors and other similar features be applied to the facts of the case in hand, one comes to no other conclusion except that the four Pattis of the village are not distinct sub-divisions within the meaning of section 15(c) Secondly of the Punjab Pre-emption Act because these Pattis are meant more for fiscal purpose than for the purpose of the Punjab Pre-emption Act. It may be mentioned here that the learned counsel for the plaintiff-respondent has not been able to refer to any judicial precedent having a view contrary to the one held in the aforesaid authorities." One of the authorities mentioned was Wazir Din v. Hidayat, 1973 SCMR 254.

4. The contention of, the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the relevant provision of section 15(c) is: "If no person having a right of pre-emption under clause (a) or clause (b) seeks to exercise it:- ' Firstly, ............................

' Secondly, in the owners of the Patti or other sub-division of the estate within the limits of which such land or property is situated."

' He made the submission that the right would vest in the owners of the Patti or other sub-division of the estate. If the case falls in either, that is to say, in Patti or in the other sub-division it will he covered by the aforesaid provision "Secondly".

5. A similar contention was raised in Yaqoob Ali v. Ch. Muhammad Sultan, 1988 SCMR 999. The observation of the learned Judge of the High Court to the effect: "What actually is required for the purposes of Pre-emption Act is that a Patti should have homogeneity of descent and area meaning that the landowners of every Patti should be separate, no stranger should own land in the said Patti and that the land-owners should belong to the same caste", was approved by this Court.

It was observed in the judgment that the learned counsel for the petitioner in that case very fairly conceded that the view taken by the learned Judge was based on judgments of the Lahore High Court. These were few in number. The learned Judges of the Supreme Court held that "as the trend of authority is clear and consistent and is against the petitioner's contention, learned counsel submitted that the view taken in these three Lahore judgments required examination, because the word, 'other' in the clause which we have quoted had not been properly examined. We would be reluctant to reverse a trend of authority so consistent and clear and in any event we find that the Lahore view has been approved by the Court in Wazir Din v. Hidayat and two others 1973 SCMR

254. Therefore, we are unable to accept learned counsel's submissions.

6. Notwithstanding the specious submissions of the learned counsel for the petitioner, the order of the learned Lahore High Court being based on the ratio of the provision as enunciated by it previously and approved recently by this Court, no interference is called for.

7. The petition is, therefore, dismissed.