KARAM ELAHEE CHAUHAN, J.-Sheikh Muhammad Sadiq (hereinafter called the plaintiff appellant) instituted a suit for possession by pre-emption of an area of 37 kanals and 11 marlas of land situated in Village Awan, Tehsil and District Rawalpindi, against (i) Bostan, (ii) Abdul Rehman and
(iii) Muhammad Zaman (hereinafter called the defendants-vendees). The suit was decreed by the learned Civil Judge on 13-4-1963 on payment of Rs. 4,434.50 and the relevant portion of his judgment directed that "the plaintiff shall deposit this sum less the amount already deposited by him in the Court before or on I I-6-1963 for payment to the defendants failing which the suit shall stand dismissed". A formal decree followed on the above lines.
2. The vendees-defendants filed an appeal but without any success as the same was dismissed by the learned Additional District Judge on 22-7-1953.
3. The vendees filed a second appeal being R. S. A. No. 196/1963 which was accepted only in respect of the enhancement of the price by a learned Single Judge of the Lahore High Court by means of his judgment and order dated 8-7-1974. The relevant portion of the aforesaid judgment reads as follows :-- "As a result of the observations made above, I accept the appeal and fix the market price of the property including the price of Ghair Mumkin Abadi, house and the well at Rs. 7,399. The respondent is directed to deposit the said amount minus any amount already deposited by him, on or before 9th September 1974, in the trial Court. Present none. Announced in open Court."
4. It appears that the amount of Rs. 2,964.50 I.e. The difference between the amount fixed by the High Court and the one fixed by the trial Court) was not deposited by the plaintiff within the requisite time. It was only after over one year and eight months that on 23/24-3-1976 the plaintiff- appellant filed a civil miscellaneous application bearing No. 1725-C/1976 under section 151/152, C. P.
C. And prayed for extension of time for depositing the aforesaid amount. It was pleaded in that application that no party nor any counsel was present on the date the judgment in the R. S. A. Was pronounced, and, therefore, the plaintiff had no knowledge about the aforesaid announce--ment nor information of any direction with regard to the deposit of any additional amount or of the period within which the said direction was to be complied was. It was further pleaded that as the High Court had not directed or indicated in its judgment that on failure to deposit the said amount within the aforesaid period the suit was to be considered as dismissed, therefore, even if there was a default in the deposit of the requisite amount the omission of the aforesaid terminology in the judgment of the High Court would not result in the dismissal of the suit. The application did not find favour with the learned Single Judge who dismissed it on 9-6-1976 held that the judgment in the R.
S. A. Was announced in the open Court after earlier showing it in the daily cause list, therefore, the plea of ignorance about the announcement of the said judgment or about its contents was baseless. He further held that as the direction in the judgment was specific and left no scope for doubt that the requisite amount had to be deposited on or before 9-9-1974 therefore the said order had duly taken effect and in the circum--stances he was not persuaded to extend the time- because according to him the plaintiff was guilty of gross negligence which could not be condoned so as to destroy a valuable right which due to his default had consequently accrued to the defendants/vendees.
5. The following passage in the order of the learned Single Judge merits reproduction :- "The right of pre-emption being piratical the person who comes forward to exercise it should be very vigilant to comply with the orders of the Court. The petitioners' counsel showed gross negligence in not making any enquiry from the office as to what had happened to the appeal brought against him. As the petitioner has not complied with the order without any reasonable ground, I see no reason to extend the time and direct that the decree passed in favour of the petitioner should stand cancelled and his suit dismissed. As the petitioner has lost a decree case, I leave the parties to bear their own costs throughout. Present none."
6. As against the aforesaid plaintiff/appellant has come up in appeal to this Court by special leave which was granted on 6-12-1976 to consider the question whether the High Court could have in its order dated 9-6-1976, while refusing to extend the time held (and I) " . . . . Direct that the decree passed in favour of the petitioner should stand cancelled and his suit dismissed",-the precise objection being that the aforesaid direction tanta--mounted to making the order of the dismissal of the suit with retrospective effect which allegedly was in excess of the jurisdiction of the learned Single Judge.
7. Learned counsel for the plaintiff/appellant has argued that as in the original order of the High Court there was no direction or indication that on failure to deposit the requisite amount within the time granted in its judgment, the suit of the plaintiff was to stand dismissed, therefore, without the existence of a direction of that type, mere failure to obey the direction of the judgment on the subject could not have resulted in the dismissal of the suit. In this respect he referred to Order XX, rule 14 of the C. P. C. (Act V of 1938) which is headed as "decree in pre-emption suit : and lays down (so far as relevant for our purpose that (i) where the Court decrees a claim to pre-emption in respect of particular sale of property and the purchase money has not been paid into Court, the decree shall-(a) specify a day on or before which the purchase money shall be so paid, and (b) direct that on payment into Court of such purchase money, together with the costs (if any) decreed against the plaintiff, on or before the day referred to in clause (a), the defendant shall deliver possession of the property to the plaintiff, whose title thereto shall be deemed to have accrued from the date of such payment, but that, if the purchase money and the costs (if any) are not so paid the suit shall be dismissed with costs . . . " Learned counsel argued that if the original order of the High Court did not contain the aforesaid direction the learned Single Judge could not add the same into his subsequent order dated 9-6-1976 whereby he refused to extend the time, because this would amount to adding such a direction retrospectively in the original order. The conten--tion has no merit. There is ample case-law to show that mere omission of such wording in the decree is not destructive of the real force of the decree. In Jai Kishan v. Bhola Nath and another ((1892) 14 1 L R 529) (John Edge, C. J. And Tyrrell, J.) "where in a suit for pre-emption the decree, while decreeing the plaintiff's right to pre-empting upon payment of the pre-emption price within one month from the date of the decree, omitted to state what would be the effect on the plaintiff's suit of non-payment within the prescribed period :-it was held that plaintiff, unless he had paid the pre-emption price before the expiry of the said month, could not enforce his decree for pre- emption. This was followed in Gurdit Singh v. Hukam Singh and others (53 P R 1903), (Anderson and Robertson, JJ.) which also was a case under the corresponding and similarly worded section 214 of C. P. C. Of 1882 (Act XIV of 1882) and it was held that "a pre-emption decree becomes void and inoperative if the pre-emptive price is not paid within the time prescribed for its payment in the decree. An omission in the decree of any order as to what would be the consequence of the decree-holder's default in payment of the pre-emptive money does not in any way affect the case." Same view was taken in Buta Singh v. Chanda Singh (47 P R 1898), (Frizelle, C. J.) where it was held that "where a decree in a suit for pre-emption directed that the sum for which pre-emption was decreed should be paid into Court by a certain date, but omitted to declare that if such sum was not paid on or before the said date, the suit should stand dismissed, such omission in the decree did not extend the time within which the plaintiff could pay the money, the plaintiff being bound nevertheless to pay the amount into Court within the time fixed. In such a case when the plaintiff failed to pay the amount into Court within the specified time, it was held that the decree had become one incapable of execution. The Supreme Court of India in a later case reported in Naguba Appa v. Namdev (AIR 1954 SC 50) held that in situation of this nature dismissal does not take place due to the direction of the aforesaid type in decree but by the provisions of the statute itself which so says in Order XX, rule 14, C. P. C. The actual passage in the words of Mahajan, J. Who delivered the judgment for the Court reads as follow :- "It was next contended that the decree drawn up by the trial Judge was not in accordance with the provisions of Order XX, rule 14 in that it contained no direction to the effect that if the deposit was not made within the time fixed the suit will stand dismissed. In our view, this contention is not sound because the dismissal of the suit is as a result of the mandatory - provisions of Order XX, rule 14 and not by reason of any decision of the Court and the omission to incorporate this direction in the decree could not in any way effect the rights of the parties."
8. The case can be examined from another angle and that is that in the decree of the learned civil Judge a direction was already contained that on failure of the deposit of the amount fixed by him within the time mentioned therein the suit shall stand dismissed. As in the C. P. C. An appeal lies against such decrees therefore this decree was appealed against by the vendee-defendants in the form of a second appeal in the High Court-the first appeal having already been dismissed by the learned Additional District Judge. The Court accepted the appeal of the vendees and made only two modifications in the decree of the learned Civil Judge namely (i) that for the amount fixed by the learned Civil Judge the High Court fixed a new amount and (ii) similarly for the time granted by the learned Civil Judge the High) Court give a further time, for deposit of the consequent differential, but so far as the direction that on failing to make the deposit as aforesaid the suit shall stand dismissed was concerned, that remained intact in the trial Court decree and was not in any way tempered with by the High Court and therefore there was no necessity to add the same over again in its judgment dated 8-7-1974. If the case is looked at from this aspect, it is manifest that there is no retros--pective direction or addition by the High Court in the matter of the dismissal of the suit as is being pleaded by the learned counsel. Reference in this respect may be made to Wasawa Singh v. Lal Singh and others (48 P R 1906) where a question arose whether an appellate Court is bound to fix a fresh time for deposit of pre-emption money when it dismisses the plaintiff's appeal and that in such situation from which date the time for deposit will run. It was held that in such cases since the decree of the Civil Judge bas not been tampered with the terms of that decree in the matter of the amount and period for deposit fixed therein remain the same and time for deposit will start from .Terminus mentioned therein. Extending this principle, however, we can safely hold as we have done above that where the appellate Court increased the pre-emption amount and also gave a fresh period for depositing the same, the rest of the direction in the trial Court decree that if the amount is not deposited the suit shall stand dismissed will remain intact and will be read along with the appellate Court's judgment and decree-and obviously (to pose a question) how even otherwise such provisions of the decree under appeal could have disappeared, omitted, altered or changed in that respect.
9. Coming to the merits of the case the same need not detain us any longer. The plaintiff has been guilty of gross negligence in not depositing the amount in time given by the High Court and as such must face the conse--quences of his own grossly negligent and indifferent conduct. In this respect the view taken by the High Court is quite in accord with the law on the subject and calls for no interference by this Court.
10. The result is that this appeal has no merit and is dismissed with no order as to costs.