P L D 1979 Supreme Court 867 (PLP)

Date of hearing : 13th May 1979. KARAM ELAHEE CHAUHAN, J. ‑Abdur Rehman (hereinafter called the vendor) sold the suit land by means of three mutations namely 3596 and 3597 both attested on 3‑3‑1971 and 3637 attested on 15‑7‑1971 for the three lots of lands respectively mentioned therein to Abdul Qayum (defendant/petitioner). Muhammad Aslam (hereinafter called the plaintiff/pre‑emptor) filed three suits to pre‑empt the aforesaid sales which were consolidated and decided by the learned Civil Judge, Abbottabad, by a common judgment dated 13‑2‑1973 whereby all the suits were decreed except with regard to a field bearing No. 488, a part of which fell in each suit.

2. Against the aforesaid judgments and decrees three appeals were filed (one in each suit) by the defendant/petitioner, and a similar number of appeals were accordingly filed by the plaintiff. The defendant/petitioner prayed for dismissal of all the suits whereas the plaintiff prayed for decree for Khasra No. 488 a portion of which as mentioned earlier was involved in all the suits. The learned District Judge accepted the appeals of the defendant/ vendee and rejected the appeals of the plaintiff and dismissed all the suits on 11‑3‑1974.

3. The plaintiff then filed three revision petitions in the High Court being Civil Revisions Nos. 320/74, 321/74 and 322/74. All these revision petitions were accepted by a learned Single Judge of the Peshawar High Court by his judgment and order dated 2‑7‑1978 whereby he set aside the judgments and decrees of the learned District Judge and decreed the suits of the plaintiff in toto.

4. The defendant/petitioner has filed three Petitions for Special Leave to~ Appeal bearing Nos. 105‑P/1978, 106‑P/ 1978 and 107‑P/1978 with respect to each corresponding suit. This order will dispose of all the aforesaid petitions.

5. The only material point which was in dispute and which was argued before us was that as one of the fields was not contiguous to the rest of the land, therefore, the plaintiff could not be considered as a contiguous owner of that field .and as matter of fact of the rest and so to say of the whole of the land and on that account all his suits should have been dismissed. After thrashing out the factual position this contention was met by the High Court in the following passage of its judgment "In the light of the above dictum on the factual plane Khasra No. 490 is contiguous to all the Khasra Nos. except Khasra No. 1381 which though situate in the some Khata No. 475 is not contiguous to the land of the petitioner. The contiguity of Khasra No. 490 extends even to those Khasra numbers which though directly not contiguous to this Khasra number shall be considered as such i.e. the contiguous Khasra numbers in dispute serving as the medium for contiguity with Khasra No. 490." The factual analysis as made by the High Court is not being taken exception to and the grievance only is with regard to the legal principle as enunciated or followed by the learned Single Judge and that was that in order that a person may pre‑empt the sale of a block of land comprised in different Khasra numbers, it is not necessary that he should have his property contiguous to all the Khasra numbers and that if his property is contiguous to any part of the block or parcel of land though comprised in a number of Khasras he will have the right to pre‑empt the entire land comprised in the Khasra number because sale of a parcel of land comprised in more than one Khasra number is not sale of as many "properties" as there are field numbers but will be only one property represented by that parcel of land. This view it may mentioned appears to be quite sound and has the support of a judgment of this Court as reported in Said Karim Shah v. TaJ Muhammad (P L D 1974 S C 383) which in its own turn approved a Full Bench decision of the Peshawar High Court reported in Muhammad Yusaf v. Sikandar (P L D 1970 Pesh. 160). When confronted with the above precedents the learned counsel bad nothing to submit against the same.

6. The result is that this petition has no merit and is dismissed. S. A. H. Petition dismissed.