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Civil Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 259 of 1967, decided on 5th October 1967.
(On appeal from the judgment and order of the High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore, dated the 20th April 1967, in Writ Petition No. 185/R of 1967).
Art. 98‑Question of fact High Court in writ jurisdiction would not interfere with finding on such questions.
Munir Ahmad, Advocate Supreme Court instructed by Tanvir Ahmad, Attorney for Petitioners.
Nemo for Respondents.
Date of hearing : 5th October 1967.
‑In this petition for special leave ; to appeal from an order passed by the High Court in writ jurisdiction, Mr. Munir, on behalf of the petitioners, Muhammad Zaman and others, has argued that an order passed by the Additional Settle ment Commissioner in revision, was without jurisdiction. He states that section 19 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958 had been amended by Ordi nance XIII of 1964 so as to take away the power of hearing revisions, by Additional Settlement Commissioners, and only the Settlement Commissioner could hear such a revision. It appears that from this revisional order passed by the Additional Settlement Commissioner, a further revision was taken to the Settlement Commissioner, whose order appears at page 39 et seq of the record: That officer noted that the Additional Settlement Commissioner, when first approached in revision, declined to exercise jurisdiction on the ground that he was not invested with the requisite powers. Later, by an application, it was pleaded before him that he had been invested with such powers, and then he heard the revision petition and dismissed it: No challenge was made to his power to hear the petition by the petitioners at that stage: Nor did they raise, that question before the Settlement Commissioner in the second revision, or before the High Court when the writ petition was heard. It was a question of fact as to when the Additional Settlement Commissioner was invested with the powers of Settlement Commissioner, and we do not consider we can undertake this investigation at the present stage. We, therefore, repel this contention as untenable in the circumstances of the case.
Mr. Munir Ahmad then argues that if the Additional Settle ment Commissioner had exercised the powers of a Settlement Commissioner in hearing the first revision, no second revision could lie to the Settlement Commissioner himself. Even if this be conceded, it does not advance the case of the petitioner any further. Both the officers dismissed the revision petition and even if the order of the Settlement Commissioner may be ignored, the net result would be the same.
On merits the High Court declined to interfere with the orders passed by the Settlement authorities by which land was taken away from other members of the family of the petitioners, except the father. They are all migrants from the State of Jammu and Kashmir, and had been allotted the land separately. Later, it was discovered that they constituted one family and therefore, all lands except those allotted in the name of the father, were can celled. The question whether the family was one, of more than one, was essentially that of fact which, it was for the departmental authorities to decide. The High Court in writ jurisdiction, could not interfere with the finding recorded in this case, that the family was one and that their members resided together.
We see no ground for grant of special leave to appeal and dismiss this petition.
Leave refused.
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