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Civil Petition No. 688 of 1980, decided on 14th September, 1980.

(On appeal from the judgment dated 9-4-1980 of the Lahore High Court in S. A. O. 280 of 1975).

Art. 185(3)-Leave to appeal to Supreme Court-Courts below concurrently finding counsel for petitioner having not appeared before transferee Court-Failure of petitioner and his counsel to appear before transferee Court could, in circumstances, legitimately result in taking ex parts proceedings and as such required no interference-Even on merits, High Court, after discussing evidence, finding petitioner having no case-Petition for leave to appeal dismissed.

Sh. Maqbul Ahmad, Advocate Supreme Court and Rana Maqbool Ahmad Qadri, Advocate-on-Record for Petitioner.

Malik Muhammad Ashab. Advocate Supreme Court and Sh. 4bdul Karim, Advocate-on-Record for Respondent.

Dale of hearing : 14th September, 1980.

-This petition for leave to appeal is directed against the order of the Lahore High Court dated 9-4-1980 rejecting the second appeal of the petitioner against the order of his ejectment passed by the Rent Controller which was upheld on appeal.

It appears that in the course of proceeding before the Rent Controller (Mr. Farman Ali) the case was transferred to another Rent Controller (Mr. Abdul Hafeez Cheema) by an Administrative order. The findings of the Courts below are that the counsel for the petitioner appeared in the transferee Court and noted the next date of hearing, on which he also appeared, but subsequently no one appeared to defend the case in the said Court on his behalf with the result that ex parte proceedings were taken against the petitioner. An application was made for setting aside the order of ex parts proceedings but this was rejected. Subsequently the order for ejectment of the petitioner was also passed. The petitioner challenged both the orders before the Additional District Judge, by an appeal, which was dismissed and the second appeal also failed.

The learned counsel for the petitioner has contended that the petitioner was not aware of the transfer of the case and the finding that some counsel appeared on his behalf before the transferee Court is untenable. In this connection reliance was placed on the affidavit of Mr. Muhammad Sharif Chauhan, Advocate, that neither he appeared nor "the previous counsel of the petitioners appeared". This was averred on the basis of the information supplied to him by the said counsel. The affidavit of the said counsel, however, was not produced and Malik Muhammad Ashab, Advocate, who apps before us for the Caveator, submitted that he had represented the respondent even before the learned Rent Controller where a counsel, namely, Mr. Javed, Advocate, had, indeed, appeared on behalf of the petitioner.

Be that as it may, the findings concurrently recorded by all the Courts below that some counsel did appear on behalf of the petitioner before the transferee Court and, therefore, on the failure of the petitioner and his counsel to subsequently appear before the said Court could legitimately result in taking ex parte proceedings against them does not require any interference. We further observe that the High Court has also held that even on the merits the petitioner had no case, after discussing the evidence which was on the record. This finding also does not suffer from any infirmity.

This petition, therefore fails and is dismissed hereby. The petitioner however, is granted a period of three months to vacate the premises.

Petition dismissed.

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