P L D 1957 (W (PLP)

The facts mentioned in the judgment of the learned lower Appellate Court have not been denied before us by the learned counsel for the petitioner. The history as to how the North‑West Frontier Province Pre‑emption Act XIV of 1950 was introduced into this Pro vince has been given in detail in the judgment of the Judicial Commissioner's Court which was written by one of us in case K. S. Muhammad Akbar Khan v. Zaidullah Khan (P L D 1954 Pesh. 99). As has been observed in that judgment this Act was the result of facile way of emotionalism among people many of whom were not particularly notable for their every day interest in religion which followed the Partition of India on the basis of religion. The people responsible for framing this law bor rowed it from the Muslim jurists, but they did not seem to have paid that attention, which ought to have been paid to the conditions prevailing in Urban and Rural Areas of this part of Pakistan, before bringing it on the Statute Book. The result is that the Law of Pre‑emption in the N. W. F. Province has been considerably confused and in every case it is found that it has caused an awkward ambiguity. Under section 12 of the N. W. F. P. Pre‑emption Act of 1950, amongst other qualities, one quality upon which a suit for pre‑emption can be based is, that the pre‑emptor must be the owner of contiguous property. It may particularly be mentioned here that the legislature did not consider it necessary that this contiguous property should be immovable property as was specifically done in section 16 Sixthly of the Punjab Pre‑emption Act, 1913, which with some modification was applied to the area erstwhile known as N. W. F. P. The ridiculous result which can be imagined is that a person can put a cot next to certain land and say that he holds a property contiguous to the immovable property sold, and, has, therefore, a superior right of pre‑emp tion than the vendee, who has no such property contiguous to it, or conversely, the vendee, by putting a cot next to the property purchased by him, can successfully defeat the pre- emptor's right of pre‑emption, who has an immovable property situated adjacent to it. The word, "property" is not defined in the N. W. F. P. Pre‑emption Act of 1950, although the words "village immovable property" and the "urban immovable property" are defined separately in section 3, subsections (2) and (3) respectively. In towns and villages where there are distinct houses with distinct boundaries one can say that a person owns a distinct house contiguous to another distinct house, but where the question of agricultural land comes, the word `contiguity" becomes extremely ambiguous, and in certain cases, might even lead to defeat the object for which the Law of Pre‑emption was introduced into this country. . It is consequently of utmost importance that the Law Officers and the legislature of the West Pakistan reviewed this Act and brought it into conformity with the object for which it is enacted and made it more unambiguous and clear. In the villages under the Punjab Land Revenue Act, there is an estate or loosely called as Mahal for which a separate record of rights is made under section 31 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, or which has been separately assessed to land revenue or would have been so assessed if the land revenue had not been released, compounded, for or redeemed, or for which the Provincial Government may by general rule or special order, declare to be an estate. The estate is then further divided into holdings which means a share or portion of an estate held by a land owner or jointly by two or more land owners. The vernacular equivalent of the term "holding" is khewat, but it is popularly called as khata, The tenant's holding is called khatauni. The Khata then in the jamabamdis which are prepared at the time of the preparation of the record‑of‑rights or annual records is divided into different Khasra Nos. Each Khasra No. is a separate entity which has at specified area and the boundaries. Whenever any property is sold or transferred in any other way, it is invariably described in the relevant steeds by Khata and Khasra Nos., both. It is also not uncommon in this part of the country for an owner to sell away some of the Khasra Nos. in a Khata and retain the rest with himself. It is, thus, clear that a Khasra No. is distinct property, and the only connection which it has with the other Kh~ spa Nos. is that it has got with them common Khata No. and the record‑of‑rights. Each Khasra No being distinct, if a suit is brought on the ground of vicinage, for possession by pre-emption of those Khasra Nos., the plaintiff must prove that lie has property contiguous to each one of them, and if he fails to do that, his suit qua the Khasra Nos. with which he has no contiguous property, must fail. This is the view which was taken by us in an unpublished ruling of this Court in case, Abdul Khaliq v. Ghulam Sarwar decided on the 12th of December 1955 (1). The following portion of that judgment may usefully be reproduced here:‑ "The word contiguous is not defined in the Pre‑emption Act. Its dictionary meaning is touching; adjoining. In order to be covered by this definition, one property must touch the other property, and if it does not, then it cannot be said that it is contiguous to that particular property. The plaintiff' in this case has his property touching Khasra No. 330, but he has no, property which touches Khasra No.

331. Consequently it cannot be said that by reason of the fact that this property touches one Khasra number out of the two Khasra numbers sold, he should automatically be held as having property touching both the Khasra numbers sold. In this particular case it so happens that the two Khasra numbers sold are contiguous to each other, but supposing if by one sale -deed several Khasra numbers are sold and all of them do not touch one another it would be ridiculous to‑ say that simply because all these Khasra numbers are sold by one deed, there fore, the plaintiff by holding his property contiguous to one Khasra number should be held to hold property contiguous to all the Khasra numbers sold." The same view was taken by a Bench of the Judicial Commissioner's Court of which we both were the members, in case Qalandar Khan v. Hafiz Qazi Pir Muhammad (P L D 1956 Pesh. 1). It was held therein that this Court has consistently taken the view that for the purpose of pre‑eruption each Khasra number was to be considered separately even though a number of them had been purchased by means of one transac tion and were contiguous to each other. It was further held in that case that the pre-emptor must prove his right based on (1) Civil Revision No. 206 of 1954 (not approved for reporting) contiguity in respect of each and every Khasra number before be can succeed. The learned counsel fur the petitioner quoted one authority only in support of his view and that is of Allahabad High Court, Abdush Shakoor v. Abdul Ghafoor and another (6 I C 358). In that case, the plaintiff‑appellant chimed to be entitled to pre‑empt a sale of a few Bighas of land which comprised two plots No. 833 and 834 as well as a part of plot No.

836. The plaintiff's land adjoined the plot of land No.

836. The claim of the appellant to pre‑empt was not based on any statutory law, but on a provision of Wajib‑ul‑arz of the village. The two Courts below had decreed the plaintiff's claim, but en second appeal, one judge of Allah abad High Court gave a decree for pre‑emption of a portion of plot No. 836 which formed part of the subject‑matter of the sale, and not of the other two plots. On appeal before the Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court, their Lordships disagreed with the Single Judge of the same Court, and held the following:‑ "The subject‑matter of the sale was a parcel of land which for convenience of cultivation or some other reason was divided into three small plots. This parcel of land adjoins the plaintiff's land and has been sold as an integer. It comprises but a small area, we see no good reason for so disintegrating the integer so sold as has been one by our learned colleague, and for holding that plot No. 836 alone and not also plots Nos. 833 and 834 adjoin plot No. 837." Their Lordships then proceed to quote from Baillie's Work on Muhammadan Law and Hamilton's Hedaya and proceed on to say "Now if the grand principle of shoofa is the con junction of property and its object is to prevent vexation arising from a disagreeable neighbour, it is clear that the object in this case would be frustrated if the decree of the learned Judge of this Court were affirmed." With due respect to their Lordships we are unable to agree with that view, because if a certain property is divided into different parts quite distinct from each other, whatever the reason for the division may be, it should be treated as a separate property. The view which we propose to take in this ease is fully supported by the view taken by Moti Sagar, J. in Genda Ram and another v. Ram Chard and another (A I R 1924 Lah. 163). It is unnecessary to quote and make this judgment cumbersome with all those numerous authorities in which two houses adjacent to each other are sold, but the claim of the plaintiff with regard to the house with which he had no contiguous property, was dismissed, on tire ground that he diet not hold the requisite qualification qua the house. We are not unmindful of the admitted principles of law of interpretation given in the Woking Muslim Mission and Literary Trust, Lahore and The Civil & Military Gazette Ltd., Lahore v. The Crown (P L D 1956 F C 209), that where a literal construction would lead to repugnancy to good sense the Court might add words to the provision to be construed, and that in determin ing either the general object of the Legislature or the meaning of its language in any particular passage the intention which appears to be most in accord with convenience, reason, justice and legal principles, should, in all cases of doubtful significance, be presumed to be true one. We have tried to look at the N. W. F. P. Pre‑emption Act from that point of view, but have failed to persuade ourselves to interpret it in any other manner. The Law of Pre‑emption, as has been held consistently by all the High Courts is a very technical one, and it should be construed exclusively on the language employed. The result of the above discussion is, that the plaintiff', who has land adjacent to Khasra No. 44, is entitled to the decree for that Khasra No. alone, and he cannot merely by reason of that fact get a decree for the rest of the Khasra numbers, to which admittedly he has no property contiguous or adjacent. The revision petitions fail, and are hereby dismissed with costs. Pleader's fee Rs.

100. HABIBULLAH KHAN, J.‑

I agree. A. H. Petitions dismissed.