SAROOP SINGH Vs. GIAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE sole question for decision in this second appeal from the order of the lower appellate Court remanding a pre-emption case to the trial Court for a decision on merits is whether the lower appellate Court was justified in granting the plaintiffs-respondents Nos. 1 to 3 an extension of time for the deposit of 1/5th of the purchase price as pre-emption money. The trial Court had declined to exercise its discretion in favour of the plaintiffs and had rejected the plaint under Section 22 (4) of the Punjab Pre-emption Act, 1913. The defendant-vendees are now the appellants before me.

(2.) ACCORDING to a Single Bench decision of this Court in Karnail Singh v. Pran Nath, 1963 Cur LJ 315 (Punj) the Court has a discretion to grant an extension of time, but the discretion has to be exercised judicially. In that case, the plaintiff-preemptors had failed to deposit the pre-emption money for a number of hearings after the date fixed for the initial deposit had expired. They had set up the plea that they had never been informed by the Court that they were to deposit the preemption money. The order directing the deposit was found to have been recorded in the presence of the plaintiff-pre-emptors on the date of which the case had been registered. In every pre-emption case, the plaintiff is presumed to know that he has to make an initial deposit in accordance with Section 22 (1) of the Act and the plea was on the face of it so frivolous that the order of the lower appellate court granting extension of time for the deposit of the pre-emption amount was set aside by the High Court.

(3.) I however, feel that in the present case the discretion has been judicially exercised by the learned Court of first appeal. The case was registered on november 3, 1966, and it had been directed by the trial Court that 1/5th of purchase price of Rs. 16,000/-should be deposited by the plaintiff-pre-emptors on or before the next date of hearing which was fixed for December 15, 1966. According to this initial order, the plaintiffs could deposit the pre-emption money up to closing hours of the Court on December 15, 1966. The plaintiffs had asked for an extension of time in an application which had been rejected by the trial court on December 3, 1966.