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Civil Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 438 of 1980, decided on 12th August, 1984.
(On appeal from the judgment, dated 21‑1‑1980 of the Lahore High Court in Writ Petition No.1386/R of 1966).
‑‑‑Arts. 185(3) & 199‑‑Displaced Persons (Land Settlement) Act (XLVII of 1958) , S.10‑‑Cancellation of allotment of land‑‑Petitioner seeking relief in Constitutional jurisdiction‑‑High Court's declining to exercise discretionary jurisdiction in favour of petitioner not being against any principle of law, Supreme Court found no justification to interfere‑‑Leave to appeal refused.
Ch . Qamaruddin Khan Meo, Advocate Supreme Court and Sh . Masud Akhtar, Advocate‑on‑Record for Petitioner.
Nemo for Respondents.
Date of hearing: 12th August, 1984.
‑ This petition for leave to appeal calls in question judgment dated 21st January, 1980 of the Lahore High Court; whereby a Constitutional petition arising out of a Land Settlement case was dismissed.
The petitioner it is stated was a confirmed allottee of the land in dispute together with some other area since 1951. This allotment was on the basis of a certificate of entitlement issued under the Rehabilitation Settlement 6cheme pending the verification of the claim entitlement. On verification petitioner's case was found to be of "no land". An objection petition (popularly known as Uzardari) it is further stated, was submitted by the petitioner and a stay order was also obtained regarding cancellation and fresh allotment of the land in his possession. This order it seems was implemented on only some documents of the Department concerned and not in the other. The question of allotment to other parties also arose as a result of which ultimately the land in dispute (which is a part only of the total land claimed by the petitioner) was allotted to respondent No.2. After some contest before the Land Settlement Authorities the petitioner sought relief in constitutional jurisdiction of the High Court and having failed has now sought leave to appeal.
A learned Single Judge of the High Court took into consideration three factors when declining to exercise discretion in writ jurisdiction of the High Court in favour of the petitioner. They are:‑
(1) Although the petitioner was not at fault in so far as the wrong verification regarding "no land" is concerned, same applies to the respondent because he too was not at fault regarding the allotment made to him of the land in dispute nearly 20 years prior to the adjudication in the High Court;
(2) That the petitioner committed a serious default in filing a writ petition in the High Court in the first instance against a dead person and it remained pending for nearly four years when on discovery of the default it was dismissed and the petitioner was obliged thus to file a second writ petition in 1966. The respondent in any case was not at fault in so far as these four years are concerned; and lastly;
(3) That both the parties in so far as the question of allotment of land against verified claims is concerned appeared to be on somewhat equal footing being claimants settled in the same estate.
When asked whether the considerations which weighed with the learned Judge in the High Court for declining to exercise a discretionary jurisdiction were against any principle or law the learned counsel for the petitioner failed to urge any point in this behalf. As the High Court, had in the circumstances of the case discretion to grant or withhold relief we, therefore, do not find any justification on the facts stated above to interfere. This petition accordingly is dismissed.
M.I. Petition dismissed
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