Mohinder Singh and Another vs Mohinder Kaur and Others

D.K. Mahajan, J.—This second appeal is directed against the concurrent decision of the Courts below dismissing the plaintiffs'' suit.

The land in dispute was sold by Mst. Mohinder Kaur, defendant No. I, by a registered deed of sale dated the 15th December, 1960. Plaintiff, Malvinder Singh, brought a suit for the usual declaration that the sale will not affect his reversionary rights as the same was without legal necessity and that the land was ancestral qua him. In the alternative, a claim for possession of the land by pre-emption was made. The trial Court dismissed the suit on the short ground that the plaint did not disclose any cause of action inasmuch as the sale by a female could not be attacked under the Customary law. After the coming into force of the Hindu Succession Act, a female was an absolute owner of the property and could validly make the sale. As regards the claim of pre-emption, the suit was dismissed because before it could be decreed, the pre-emptor had died. So far as the present appellants, who are his sons, are concerned, they cannot continue the suit because they have no independent right of pre-emption vide the decisions of this Court in Smt. Joginder Kaur v. Jasbir Singh 1965 Curr. L.J. 796 : (1965) 67 P.L.R. 1158. The sons of the pre-emptor have no independent right of pre-emption in view of section 15 (2) of the Punjab Pre-emption Act.

Mr. D.C. Gupta, learned counsel for the sons, contended that the sons were tenants of the land and thus could pre-empt the sale. There is no such right of pre-emption conferred on the tenants in case of a sale by a female u/s 15 2) of the Punjab Pre-emption Act.

For the reasons recorded above, this appeal fails and is dismissed with no order as to costs.