- (1.) -These appeals by special leave are directed against the common judgment and decree of the Punjab and Haryana High Court passed in L.P.A. Nos. 576-79 of 1975.
(2.) Three brothers, by means of four sale deeds executed on June 25, 1968, sold some parcels of land to Harbhajan Singh respondent herein. The 4th brother by the name of Ujagar Singh, whose legal representatives are the appellants herein, filed four suits of pre-emption against the vendee and those were decreed on July 15, 1970, on terms of payment of pre-emption money on or before August 30,1970. Four appeals were filed by the plaintiff-pre-emptors before the District Judge for the reduction of the preemption money. On an application moved by the pre-emptors the time for deposit of the amount fixed under the decree by the trial Court was extended till further orders. The appeals finally were rejected under O. 41, R. 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure as being insufficiently stamped and hence not properly presented. Beforehand, however, the plaintiff pre-emptors, all the same, deposited the preemption amount in the trial Court, on their own, on October 26, 1970.
(3.) After the rejection of their appeals, the pre-emptors sought execution of the preemption decrees which attracted objections by the vendee-judgment-debtor. The primary objection raised was that the suits stood automatically dismissed for non-deposit of the pre-emption money within the time identically stipulated under the questioned decrees. The plea of the vendee was based on the mandate of O. 20, R. 14, Civil Procedure Code where under the Court when decreeing the claim to pre-emption is required to specify in the decree on or before which the premption money shall be paid, if not already paid, and further if it is not so paid, the suit shall stand dismissed with costs. (Whatever is relevant in O. 21, R. 14 alone has been taken note of). The date specified by the trial Court as said before was August 30, 1970 and under the interim orders of the appellate Court the time for depositing the said money was extended till further orders. Undeniably the Court never passed any further orders in that regard and thus the time for depositing the said money stood extended without any limit. The objection was sustained by the Trial/ Executing Court. On appeal to the appellate Court at the instance of the pre-emptors, the District Judge took a contrary view permitting the execution to proceed. A learned single Judge of the High Court in appeal upheld the view of the District Judge, but a Division Bench of the High Court, in letters patent appeals, reversed the District Judge as also the single Judge upholding the objection by the vendee that there were no decrees which could be executed.;