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Civil Petition No. 1153 of 1976, decided on 12th March, 1983.

(From the order, dated 22‑10‑1976 of the Lahore High Court passed in Writ Petition No. 155‑R of 1976).

---Art. 185(3)‑ Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act (XXVIII of 1958), S. 10‑Various occupants of building transferred portions in then respective possession subject to direction about excess Successors‑in‑interest of occupant and transfer claiming portion never in their possession and such transferee neither laid claim to same before Settlement Commissioner nor objected to transfer of portion in their possession and same duly allowed to successors‑in‑ interest‑High Court rightly rejected writ petition of successors‑in- interest claiming excess portion of building than in their possession, leave to appeal refused.

Syed Zainul Abidin, Advocate Supreme Court instructed by Sh. Abdul Karim, Advocate‑on‑Record for Petitioners.

Nemo for Respondents.

Date of hearing: 12th March, 1983.

‑On remand by a Letters' Patent Bench of the Lahore High Court on the question of transfer of property No. S.86‑R‑74, Ferozepur Road, Lahore, to its various occupants, the Deputy Settlement Commissioner by his order dated 19‑11‑1973 gave Tufail Muhammad Khan, the predecessor‑in‑interest of the petitioners, the portion of the property in his possession. The petitioners went in revision praying that "half of the residential building alongwith proportionate ground, garages and outhouses with passage be separated for the petitioner and transferred to him as an independent unit". The revision was, however, dismissed on 18‑10‑1975, whereupon they instituted a writ petition but the same, too, was dismissed on 22‑10‑1976, which dismissal is being challenged in the present petition for leave to appeal.

3. The grievance of the petitioners is that they were given only the building part but no portion of the lawn in front although they were entitled to three times the plinth area, which had thus been denied to them. According to the finding of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner, vide his order dated 19‑11‑1973, the portion in possession of the petitioners was:‑‑

"Two rooms, one store, one long room in front, two rooms, one small room, one deori, one kitchen, one bath, one latrine and walled court yard."

There is nothing to show that the petitioners possessed any other part of the property. The "big courtyard in front and on eastern side" was found by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner to have been in possession of respondent Abdul Majid. The Deputy Settlement Commissioner further recorded that .

"The portions of the property in possession of the abovementioned persons are independent in all respects and all the occupants have expressed before me that they have no objection if the portions in their respective possession are transferred to the said occupants. The portions of the property, in possession of the said successors‑in‑interest of Tufail Muhammad Khan, deceased, Mr. Abaul Majid, Munshi, Mst. Hussain Bibi, Feroze Din and Zahid Hussain are, therefore, transferred in their favour .

" ..Excess land, if any, in possession of any of the transferees shall be worked out by the Settlement Inspector and compliance reported .. "

It is, thus, obvious that the contesting parties had each been transferred the portion in their respective possession subject to the direction about the excess if any, that what the petitioners are now claiming had never been in their possession, that they had not laid claim to it before the Deputy Settlement Commissioner and that they had no objection to the transfer, iii their favour, of only that portion of the property which had been in their possession and the same had been duly allowed to them.

3. The High Court was, therefore, right in rejecting the petitioners' writ Petition. Leave to appeal is refused.

M.Z.M. Leave refused.

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