' MUHAMMAD AFZAL LONE, J.---Leave to appeal was granted in this pre-emption case, to examine that "the petitioners had taken possession much before the registration of the sale in their favour and the documentary evidence in that behalf Exh.D-3 has been completely ignored".
2. The appellants were defendants before the trial Court, who defended the sale of the land in dispute in their favour and contested the suit on several grounds but the one relevant for the purpose of this appeal is rested on the plea that the suit was barred by time. This plea is covered by issue No,3. The facts disclosed in the written statement on which the plea of limitation was founded were that the appellants entered into an agreement for sale with the vendor namely Moosa on 10-5-1967 and paid him a sum of Rs,10,000 towards the sale price of the suit land and obtained its possession on the same date; that subsequently another agreement dated 13-2-1968 was executed between them and the remaining sale price of Rs,2,000 received by the vendor. The sale-deed was executed and got registered on 18-3-1969. According to the appellants the period of limitation commenced from the date of possession i,e. 10-5-1967 and not the date of execution of the sale-deed and thus the suit filed on 14-3-1970 was barred by time.
3. The learned trial Court referred to the two agreements for sale and noticed that the first agreement dated 10-5-1967 included an averment that the possession was delivered to the vendee Muhammad Hussain, appellant No,1 herein. The trial Court noticed that the sale-deed was executed not only in his name but in favour of other two appellants, namely, Mukhtar Ali and Ahmad Ali as well. This in its opinion gave rise to a new contract and the original contract between Muhammad Hussain and the vendor stood rescinded. In this view of the matter, the learned trial Court held that the date of execution of the sale-deed was the starting point of the limitation and thus, the suit was within time. In view of this finding, Issue No,3 was answered against the appellants. As the trial Court's findings on other material issues were also in favour of the respondents their suit was decreed. In the first appeal filed by the appellants, the learned District Judge took the view that the agreements aforesaid did not make mention of the detailed description of the suit land and maintained that the period of limitation commenced from 18-3- 1969 i,e. The date when the sale-deed was executed. The first appeal thus failed. The judgment of the learned District Judge is dated 30-7-1973. The unsuccessful vendees then preferred a second appeal before the High Court which was dismissed by the learned Single Judge, vide judgment dated 4-3-1991, under challenge in this appeal; the operative part whereof runs as follows; "According to sale-deed Exh.D.3 Muhammad Hussain defendant No,1 purchased 53/533 share, whereas according to agreements of sale Exhs.D.1 and D.2 the entire land was to be purchased by Muhammad Hussain. The recital in the agreements Exhs.D.1 and D.2 regarding delivery of possession to Muhammad Hussain alone under these agreements which were only in his favour could not be availed in the matter of limitation against the present sale which was in favour of three persons and which was sought to be pre-empted, therefore, the question of limitation was to be decided only with reference to Exhs.D.3. There is no evidence that the other two vendees namely Mukhtar Ali and Ahmad Ali were delivered possession under the sale prior to registration of the sale-deed. Muhammad Hussain has appeared as his own witness and stated that he was in possession of the land prior to even the execution of the said two agreements as such, there is no sufficient rebuttal based on reliable evidence that his possession was under the sale. The findings of the two Courts below that in such circumstances the period of limitation under Article 10 was to start from the date of the registration of the sale-deed Exh.D.3 do not suffer from any illegality and they have not been shown to have been based on misreading, misconstruction or non-reading of evidence."
4. The question as to whether or not the appellants obtained possession on 10-5-1967 under the agreement for sale is a question of fact on which all the Courts below have rendered a concurrent finding against them, but the contention of the learned Counsel for the appellants is that this finding suffers from non-reading of an important document and thus no sanctity is attached to it.
He argued that Exh.D.3, which is a copy of Khasra Girdawari Register, and shows that the three appellants were in possession of the land in Rabi 1967 in the capacity of vendees, has not been considered by the trial Court, the first Appellate Court as well as the High Court. In order to point out that the foundation of the claim that the possession was taken over by the appellants before execution of the sale-deed, was laid down in the written statement, the learned Counsel has invited our attention to para No,1 thereof wherein it is stated that they obtained Kabza Malkana under the agreement for sale on 10-5-1967. Reference was also made by him to the agreement itself, which as observed earlier, embodies the factum of delivery of possession. In this behalf, the learned Counsel further relied upon the statement of Muhammad Hussain appellant, who appeared as DW.3 and claimed to have been inducted into the land when the agreement was executed. It has been thus argued that limitation would be governed by section 30 of the Punjab Pre-emption Act and start from the date the appellant took physical possession of the land under the sale and thus the suit filed on 19-3-1970 was liable to be dismissed as barred by time.
5. We have examined the record before us to evaluate these contentions. As already discussed, the appellants' case is that they got the possession in pursuance of the sale, under the agreement dated 10-5-1967, on the date of its execution. Support for this submission is sought from Khasra Girdawari Exh.D.3, which indicates that the land was in cultivating possession of the appellants in Rabi 1967 as vendees. The learned Counsel for the appellants is justified in contending that this document has not been discussed in the judgments of any of the Courts below, but before us it has been conceded by him that survey of Rabi crop is carried on by the Revenue staff in the month of March every year. It being so, it is not understandable as to how the factum of delivery of possession, which took place on 10-5-1967 under the agreement for sale, found mention in the Khasra Girdawari, prepared on the basis of the survey conducted in March 1967. It is noteworthy that under the agreement dated 10-5-1967, the possession was passed on only to Muhammad Hussain, but the names of the other appellants i,e. Mukhtar All and Ahmad Ali also figure in the Khasra Girdawari. The genuineness of the entries in Exh.D.3 relating to the appellants' possession as "mushtri" is open to doubt. We may observe that under the law no presumption of correctness attaches to the entries in the Khasra Girdawari. (See Muhammad Akram and others v. The State 1977 SCM R 433). The position is different, if such entries are incorporated in the Jamabandi.
However, this is not the case of the appellants that these entries were acted upon in the Jamabandi. Further, the appellants have not produced "Roznamcha Waqiati" of the Patwari in support of their claim to have taken possession of the land as vendees, although they examined Munshi Manzoor Hussain, Patwari as D.W.1. The presumption is that such an entry does not exist in the Daily Diary of the Patwari. This would furnish another reason to dissuade us to place reliance on the entries in Exh.D.3.
6. In the course of his submissions, the learned Counsel for the respondents brought to our notice that before the sale the land was in cultivating possession of the appellants as tenants under the vendor. He urged that their possession continued to bear the same character till the execution of the sale-deed dated 18-3-1969. It seems to us that this assertion finds ample support from the statement of Muhammad Moosa (P.W.1 vendor) who was examined by the respondents. Again Muhammad Hussain, appellant No,1, while appearing as his own witness admits his possession since 1961. Obviously, this possession was as a tenant. The appellants have failed to establish by any reliable evidence that the change in the nature of their possession took place before the execution of the sale-deed. The onus of proof lay on them which they have failed to discharge. In the circumstances of the case, we are of the view, that even if the document Exh.D.3 was present to the mind of the Courts below their decision would not have been different one. There is no good ground to disturb their concurrent finding on question of possession.
' This appeal having been found without merit is dismissed, but the parties are left to bear their own costs.