Find a Lawyer

Constitutional Petition No. 24 of 1976, decided on 14th September, 1983.

Art. 9 Limitation Time-barred appeal Additional Commissioner deciding time-barred appeal without even referring to question of limitation Order, held, without lawful authority and of no legal effect. [Limitation].

Ahsan All and others v. District Judge and others P L D 1969 S C 167 rel.

K. A. Wahab for Petitioner.

Muhammad All Shaikh for Respondents.

Date of hearing: 14th September, 1983.

This petition is directed against the orders, dated 21st January, 1974 and 23rd September, 1975, passed by respondents Nos. 2 and 1 respectively. The relevant facts leading to the filing of the above petition are that the agricultural land, mentioned in para. 7 of the petition, was granted to respondent No. 4 in February, 1963 by the D. C./D. R. C., Hyderabad. It seems that respondent No. 4 paid all the instalments by 1971. After that he sold the land to the petitioner on 2nd May, 1972 for a consideration of Rs. 9,000 under a registered sale-deed (copy of which is Annexure "D" to the petition). It further seems that after the execution and registration of the above sale-deed, respondent No. 3 filed an appeal in 1972 against the grant in favour of respondent No. 4. The above appeal was taken up by the Additional Revenue Commissioner Sind, Hyderabad and was allowed without adverting to the question of limitation and also to the fact that in the meantime petitioner has acquired interest for valuable consideration. The petitioner being aggrieved by the above order filed appeal before respondent No. 1, which was dismissed by the aforesaid order, dated 23rd September, 1975. The petitioner has, therefore, filed present petition.

2. In support of the above petition, Mr. K. A. Wahab, learned counsel for the petitioner has contended that the Additional Commissioner could not have granted the appeal, which was admittedly time-barred by a number of years. On the other hand, it has been urged by Mr. Muhammad Ali Shaikh, learned counsel for the respondents that under para-6 of terms of the grant contained in the letter, dated 18th February, 1963 (Annexure "A" to the petition), the purchaser, i. e., respondent No. 4 could not have sold the land without the sanction in writing of the Collector before he would have paid the full price.

3. The contention of Mr. K. A. Wahab that the learned Additional Commissioner could not have entertained and could not have granted respondent No. 3's appeal after the expiry of nearly 10 years from the date' of grant in favour of respondent No. 4, seems to be correct. It is a well-settled principle of law that an appeal cannot be entertained after the expiry of limitation period without adverting to this aspect and without cogent A reason. In the instant case the Additional Commissioner has not even bothered to refer to the question of limitation. In this regard reference may be made to the case of Ahsan Ali and others v. District Judge and others (P L D 1969 S C 167), in which Hamood-ur-Rehman, C. J. of the Honourable Supreme Court while dealing with the question of limitation in relation to an appeal under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958 observed that whether the plea of limitation was raised or not by the party, it was the duty of the Settlement Commissioner to notice the point of limitation. The above case is applicable on all fours to the present case. Reverting to the above contention of Mr. Muhammad Ali Shaikh, it will suffice to observe that according to Annexure "C" to the petition, which is a copy of extract from the revenue record, it is evident that all the instal ments were paid by respondent No. 4 before his name was mutated in the revenue record in 1972, the full price was paid by 2nd December, 1971, which is indicated from the photostat copy of the paid up challan (Annexure "B" to the petition). In this view of the matter clause 6 of the letter of grant relied upon by Mr. Muhammad All Shaikh has no application. We, therefore, allow the above petition and declare the two impugned orders as being without lawful authority and of no legal effect. Respondents Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are restrained from acting upon the above orders. In the circum stances there will be no order as to costs.

M. B. A. Appeal accepted.

***