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Civil Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 696 of 1979, decided on 10th September, 1985.
(From the judgment of the Lahore High Court, Lahore, dated 7‑7‑1979 in Writ Petition No. 667‑R of 1974).
‑‑‑Art. 185(3)‑‑Displaced Persons (Land Settlement) Act (XLVII of 1958), Ss.10 & 11‑‑Leave to appeal‑‑Transfer of land‑‑Questions, whether Settlement Commissioner (Lands) had no jurisdiction to admit and record additional evidence, and whether sufficient opportunity of rebuttal by arguments or reference to records or by cross‑examination was not afforded to respondent side and whether case, instead of being decided by High Court itself by affording further opportunity to respondent side, if necessary, should not have been decided, in so far as merits of claims of parties were concerned, requiring examination‑‑Petition converted into appeal and appeal ordered to be prepared on present record with liberty to parties to file additional evidence.
Abdul Basit, Advocate Supreme Court (absent) and Hamid Aslam Qureshi, Advocate‑on‑Record for Petitioner.
Sh. Salahuddin, Advocate‑on‑Record for Respondents Nos. 1 to 4.
Ch. Mehdi Khan Mehtab, Advocate‑on‑Record (absent) fox Respondents No. 5 to 10.
Date of hearing: 10th September, 1985.
Leave to appeal has been sought from judgment, dated 7‑7‑1979 of the Lahore High Court, whereby a constitutional petition filed by the respondent side which had arisen out of a land settlement case, was allowed and the case remanded for fresh decision after excluding a certain piece of evidence.
The only ground which prevailed with the learned Single Judge of the High Court was that when deciding the revision in a land settlement case, the Settlement Commissioner had examined fresh evidence and had afforded opportunity of cross‑examination to the respondent side but had not afforded them an opportunity of producing evidence in rebuttal, therefore, the order, impugned before the High Court for these reasons was without lawful authority. Accordingly, a remand order was passed with a direction to exclude the entire said evidence.
The questions whether the Settlement Commissioner (Lands) had no jurisdiction to admit and record additional evidence and whether, sufficient opportunity of rebuttal by arguments or reference to the records or by cross‑examination was not afforded to the respondent side and whether the case instead of being decided by the High Court itself by affording further opportunity to the respondent side, if necessary, should not have been decided in so far as the merits of the claims of the parties are concerned, require examination.
Notices to the respondents were also issued by another Bench of this Court on 13th April, 1983 "to show cause why this petition should not be converted into an appeal and the order of the High Court, dated 7‑7‑1979 be set aside". Learned counsel for the respondents having put in a caveat has opposed the grant of leave to appeal.
We, after hearing both the sides, consider it a fit case for fuller examination. Accordingly, this petition is converted into an appeal.
The appeal to be prepared on the present record with liberty to the parties to file additional documents, if necessary, and to be fixed within six months alongwith the appeal arising out of Civil Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 1074 of 1980 (Dr. Capt. Muhammad Rafiq and others v. Settlement Commissioner, Lahore and others).
M . Y . H . Petition allowed.
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