IMPORTANT POINT
The respondent has to he rendered defenceless is asserting his claim for Pre-emption on the basis of co-shareship due to 1995 Haryana Amendment to Punjab pre-emption Act, 1913. The Appellant s right of pre-emption on the basis of his tenancy rights has to be decreed.

ORDER

The sole appellant having died, application for substitution is allowed.

2. The appellant before us (now represented by his heirs and legal representatives) is the plaintiff-pre-emptor. The respondent on the other side is the vendee. The suit property was sold by a set of co-sharers, males as well as females. The appellant staked claim to the suit property in exercise of his right of pre-emption based on tenancy. The respondent resisted the suit contending that since the vendors were both males and females, the share of the female vendors was not pre-emptable in terms of Section 15(2) of the Punjab Pre-emption Act as applicable to the State of Haryana. And, further, if the sale by emale vendors was not pre-emptable, he as a successors-in-interest became a co-sharer in the suit land, and as such he had a superior right over the plaintiff under Section 15(1) of the aforesaid Act.

3. The Trial Court as also the lower appellate court went into oral and documentary evidence adduced by the parties in coming to the firm conclusion that the appellant being a tenant had a superior right of pre-emption in preference to the respondent. The High Court allowed the second appeal of the vendee-respondent and dismissed the suit of the appellant, on the premise that when part of the sale effected by female vendors was not pre-emptable under Section 15(2), then the vendee, as a co-sharer in his own right, had a right to pre-empt the sale made by the male vendors under Section 15(1) of the Act. It is this view of the High Court which has been put to challenge before this Court.

4. In Attam Prakash v. State of Haryana and Ors.1, this Court has categorically struck down Section 15(2) of the Act as ultra vires the Constitution. As referred to earlier, Section 15(2) applies to cases of sales made by females. Due to the non obstante clause operating in Section 15(2), those sales are not pre-emptable under Section 15(1) of the Act. When the right of pre-emption under Section 15(2) is no longer available, it can now be searched in Section 15(1) in so much as is left alive in Attam Prakash s case. Thereunder, in clause fourthly , the right of pre-emption vests in a co-sharer and then in clause fifthly , it vests in the tenant who holds under tenancy of the vendor or vendors the land or property sold or a part thereof. Uptil the High Court decision, the co-sharer had a superior right of pre-emption over the tenant. In the meantime, however, by Haryana Amendment Act 10 of 1995 which came into force on July 7, 1995, the right of pre-emption in favour of the co-sharer has been withdrawn by causing necessary amendment in the parent Act. The right of pre-emption now survives only in favour of the tenant and not for any other. Thus, the superior claim of the respondent presently stands snatched away from him by statutory amendment. This Court in Karan Singh and others v. Bhagwan Singh (D) by LRs and others2, has taken the view in this context that it would take judicial notice of the law as prevailing on the date of the order or judgment and apply it to mould relief accordingly. Following the same line of reasoning the respondent has to be rendered defenceless in asserting his claim for pre-emption on the basis of co-sharership.

5. The appellant on the other hand can only succeed on the basis of his tenancy right. Mr. Harbans Lal, learned senior counsel for the respondent has made an effort to convince us that the revenue record adduced in evidence in support of the plea of tenancy is not reliable, especially when there are entries suggestive of the fact, that the tenant was not in cultivating possession in part of the land. These entries were examined by the courts below, and were reconciled in favour of the tenant/appellant on the premise that there was a presumption in favour of continuity of his possession and once it was conceded that the appellant was the tanant over the land in dispute, he shall be presumed to have continued thereafter unless by