The right of preemption under Section 8 of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955, is available only when a co-sharer transfers a portion or share of the holding to a person other than a co-sharer.

Shivakant Prasad, J.

Review application filed on behalf of the opposite party is against the order dated 4th June, 2015 passed by this Court in C. O. No. 3826 of 2012 inter alia on the ground that evidence and the judgment of both the Court below has not been noticed to this fact that by three separate registered deeds of conveyance executed on 6th February, 1988, 1st February, 1988 and 17th June, 1988 bearing deed nos. 4479, 965 and 5814, 38 decimals, 38 decimals and 8 decimals of land respectively in R.S. Plot No. 809 from the owner Mangobinda Mahapatra by which opposite party purchased the said land and thereby became co-sharer in respect of the plot and therefore, right of pre-emption cannot be exercised at all by a contiguous land owner in respect of the said plot.

2. Provision of Section 8 of West Bengal Land Reforms Act provides for preemption of co-sharer when a share or portion of a plot of land sold to any person other than co-sharer but in the facts of the present case the applicant himself became the co-sharer of Plot No. 809 by purchase of shares in the plot by virtue of the said three separate deeds of conveyance.

3. It is also contended that when the applicant himself has become a co-sharer in the plot of land by the said successive purchases of shares in R.S. Plot No. 809, preemption of undivided share would not lie on the instance of adjoining owner.

4. The learned Trial Court by allowing the preemption by an adjoining owner committed an error by holding that a person becomes owner of the land only upon registration of the deed of conveyance when in fact as pointed out by Appellate Court below the deed of conveyance takes effect from the date of its execution which is evident from the language used in Section 47 of the Registration Act, 1908, which provides that a registered document operates from the time which it would have commenced to operate if no registration thereof had been required or made, and not from the time of its registration. And as such, the observation of the learned Trial Court that the date of transfer means the date of registration of the sale deed is absolutely erroneous as there is no provision for overriding the provision of the Registration Act.

5. It is further submitted by learned Counsel for the present petitioner that P.W.-1 during his cross-examination before the Trial Court deposed that by 'Nirupanpatra' his father allotted entire Plot No. 809 in favour of Mangobinda Mahapatra and sold entire land of Plot No. 809.

6. The background leading to this review application is that the present opposite parties challenged the judgment and order dated September 27, 2012 passed by learned Additional District Judge, redesignated Court, Midnapore, District-Midnapore (West) and Misc. Appeal No. 1127 of 2011 reversing the judgment and order dated June 15, 2011 passed by the learned Civil Judge, Junior Division, First Court at Midnapore, District-Midnapore in Judicial Misc. Case No. 27 of 1988.

7. The petitioners of C.O. No. 3826 of 2012 present opposite parties exercised their preemption right under Section 8 of W.B.L.R. Act on the ground that the opposite party No. 2 without the knowledge of the petitioner has transferred the suit property in favour of the opposite party No. 1 by execution of the impugned deed of sale dated February 6, 1988 vide deed No. I- 4479 of 1988 and on the ground that the present opposite parties are adjoining land owners. On contested hearing the learned Civil Judge by his judgment dated June 15, 2011 allowed the Misc. Case under Section 8 of W.B.L.R. Act which was challenged by the pre-emptee by filing a Misc. Appeal No. 1127 of 2011 and the learned Additional District Judge was pleased to remand back the case to the Trial Court with a direction to re-adjudicate the case afresh in the perspective of the findings that the learned Court below had failed to make any comment about alleged transferred of the entire R.S. Plot No. 809 as found and admitted by P.W.-1 in c