( 1 ) THIS is a vendees appeal in a preemption case. The property in the suit is situate in mauza mathurapur and is admittedly governed by the custom of pre-emption. The case of the plaintiffs was that they were co-sharers in holding No 2 of the said village in which the land, sought to be pre empted, was situate, and that they had, for that reason, a preferential right of purchase and pre-emption as against defendants 1 to 11. Their case was that defendants 12 to 16, who are the vendors in this case, had sold the property by two deeds, one dated 22-0-1943, and the other dated 77. 1943, to defendants 1 to 11, who are strangers, without their knowledge. They pleaded that the deed of 22-6-1941 had been fictitiously described as a deed of gift in respect of 10 biswas of land. It was, in point of fact, part of one and the same transaction. What the vendors had according to the plaintiffs done was to sell the entire land, including the 10 biswas of land, in respect of which they bad executed the deed of gift, to the defendants vendees for a total sum of rs. 23,000 and had given to the first deed the garb of a deed of gift in order to defeat the right of the plaintiffs to preem