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2. The facts giving rise to this petition are that the petitioners were jointly allotted 693 Acres and 32 Ghuntas of agricultural land under the Mechanized Farming Scheme by the Director, Ghulam Muhammad Barrage in Deh Morhadee Taluka and District Badin and were put in possession of the land in question as far back as 1962. The said grant was cancelled by the order dated 9-9-1975 passed by the Revenue Officer, Ghulam Muhammad Barrage, now named as Kotri Barrage. The said land was re-allotted to local Haris in the year 1976.

3. The petitioners on coming to know of the said cancellation and re-allotment in or about 1980, as alleged made applications the Martial Law Authorities viz. the Sub-Martial Law Administrator, Thatta, Deputy Martial Law Administrator, Hyderabad and the Martial Law Administrator Zone 'C' but the same were rejected by orders dated 11-8-1983 and 8-8-1985. Thereafer, the petitioners chose to file on 17-9-1985 the above petition under Article 9 of the Provisional Constitution Order, 1981, which has now come up before us for Katcha Peshi, after parawise comments were received from the respondents.

4. Mr. Aftab Ahmad Shaikh, learned counsel for the petitioner has raised the following contentions in support of the petition, namely:-----

(i) No show-cause notice for cancellation of grant has been given or served on the petitioners as required under section 24 of the Colonization of Government Lands Act, 1912, and

(ii) The disposal of land after its resumption has been made in violation of condition No. 15 of Government Notification No. KBI/1/30/72/7179/7784, dated 20th November, 1972.

5. As regards the first contention, Mr. Syed Riaz Ahmad has produced the departmental file in Court and has filed a date-wise statement of notices and letters issued to the petitioners in the choronological order. It appears that a notice dated 8-8-1973 was issued to the petitioners to show cause as to why the grant should not be cancelled for violation of the terms and conditions on which the land was granted.

The process-server submitted his report on the said notice, translation of which reads as under:-

"The concerned Muhammad Jamil .... is not present on his land and he is not residing there. One copy of this notice was thrown on the land in presence of above witnesses and it is presumed that the notice has been served in presence of the above persons whose signatures have been obtained as above."

Another letter dated 16-8-1973 appears to have been issued as fresh show-cause notice to Muhammad Jamil, who in response thereof appears to have filed an application dated 24-11-1973, stating, inter alia, that it has come to his notice that cancellation orders in respect of his grant have been issued, which may be withdrawn. The Revenue Officer, Kotri Barrage by his letter dated 19-7-1974 directed the petitioners to produce the documentary evidence in support of his contentions raised in the application aforesaid within a fortnight. The petitioners having failed to do so another notice dated 27-11-1974 was issued to them for production of documentary evidence within a fortnight, but they again failed to produce the same. They were, however, again called upon to produce the requisite documentary evidence by another notice dated 17-3-1975 within a period of 7(seven) days, failing which necessary steps regarding cancellation of land will be taken as required under the rules. On the back of this letter one Ghulam Nabi Kotwar reported in presence of two witnesses namely, Arbi Rajoo and Uris Rajoo, which reads as under:-

"Jamil since grant of land in Deh Morhadi is not residing there, neither any one person or Kamdar is cultivating his land, therefore, notice is returned herewith, and it was informed by the residents of Deh that he is residing at Punjab.

There is also a report of the Barrage Mukhtiarkar No.631 of 1975 dated 18-7-1975 at page 433 of the file which says that neither the grantees nor any other persons came forward to claim as their representative. No Tractor was seen there. The land was lying uncultivated without any development; either by Mechanized Methods or through labour. The grantees have not paid a single instalment after the grant is made in their favour from 1962/63. Thereafter, the Revenue Officer, Kotri Barrage, Hyderabad passed the impugned order canceling the grant holding that show-cause notice dated 8-8-1973 has been issued to the grantee and he has also given reply of the said notice by his application dated 24-11-1973 arid the reports of the Mukhtiarkar, Badin dated 12-6-1973, 21-6-1974 and 18-7-1975 are quite clear. The grantees are not present at the site; they have not developed the land in question. No Mechanized Methods have been used. The land has not been cultivated in the past; they have not paid instalments. There/ have been infringement of conditions Nos.3, 14, 15, 16, 19 and 25 of the grant. After passing the said order it appears that no steps were taken by the petitioners in respect of the said resumption of land, either by way of appeal or revision to the Authorities concerned, as provided in the Act itself. There also appears no representation made by the petitioners to the Revenue Officer or any other Authority under the Act. The petitioners, therefore, seem to have taken no interest in the matter. However, after about five years of passing the said order of resumption of land, petitioners approached the Martial Law Authorities by application dated 18-2-1980. It would thus, appear that the grant was resumed by order dated 9-9-1975 passed by the Revenue Officer after giving show-cause notice and issuing several letters to produce documentary evidence to support the contentions raised by the petitioners in their reply dated 22-11-1973. The plea of the learned counsel that no show-cause notice for cancellation of the grant was issued to the petitioners or that no opportunity was given to present their case before the Revenue officer concerned, is not supported by the facts on record.

6. Mr. Aftab further contended that under section 24 of the Colonization of the Government Lands Act, 1912 it was mandatory for the Revenue Officer to give an opportunity to the petitioners to rectify the breaches. Reliance is placed by the learned counsel on the case of Noor Hussain v. Misri Khan and others 1981 S C M R 1125 and Muhammad Yamin and 16 others v. Member (Land Utilization), Board of Revenue, Sind and others 1981 C L C 1700. In the first case, it was urged by the learned counsel for the petitioner that under section 24 of the Colonization of Government Lands (Punjab) Act, before the land could be resumed it was incumbent on the Collector to examine whether the mistake on the part of the defaulter was rectifiable or not. If the mistake or breach was rectifiable then the Collector was bound to give an opportunity to the defaulter to pay the price. It was held by the Supreme Court that the contention has no merit. The petitioner had himself filed an appeal against the aforesaid order of the Collector which was accepted by the Commissioner who gave two months time to the petitioner to pay the price. The petitioner in the circumstances was not entitled to raise any grievance against the forfeiture of the land. In the second case, it was held by a Division Bench of this Court that "the learned Member, Board of Revenue has not seriously considered as to whether there was breach of conditions or not. He has failed to consider as to whether in case there was breach of conditions he would impose a penalty or order the resumption of the tenancy. lie has also failed to consider in case there was breach as to whether it was capable of rectification or not, and in case it was capable of rectification a written notice should have been ordered requiring the tenant to rectify the breach within reasonable time, which has not been done." The impugned order was, therefore, set aside in the constitutional petition. The Karachi case appears to be of some assistance to the petitioners, but the proviso to section 24 of Colonization of Government Lands Act, 1912, which is relied on by Mr. Aftab, is subject to the condition that the breach must be capable of rectification. No argument was advanced by Mr. Aftab that the breach of the conditions was capable of rectification and there was any positive effort on the A part of the petitioners to rectify them at any stage. We called upon Mr. Aftab to show if he has made the payment of the price of the land in question to the department concerned or if any such offer has been made by the petitioners to the department. He submitted that he paid the first instalment of Rs.19,000 and odd, at the time of allotment and has not paid any further instalment thereafter. Mr. Syed Riaz Ahmad submits that the petitioners under the terms of the grant were obliged to pay Rs.7,56,226 in eight equal instalments. The counsel for the parties were in some disagreement as to the number of instalments, which ought to have been paid by 1975. In any case, the admitted fact is that not a single penny was paid or tendered by the petitioners after 3-3-1962, when the land was granted to the petitioners. It is also noticed that the petitioners were heard subsequently by the Member, Sind Board of Revenue and the Chairman, Governor's Inspection Team on their applications, but no effort was made by them to make payment. For the reasons stated above and the other circumstances which will be described presently, we are not impressed by the submission of the1 learned counsel. Reliance is placed by us on Imam Bux v. The Collector and others 1982 S C M R 149. In that case, the land from the name of the petitioner was resumed on account of his not having complied with the terms of lease, in neither bringing the requisite area under cultivation nor paying the Lagan. It was thus, held by the Supreme Court that the petitioner not cultivating the land for a long period of time and failing to fulfil requisite condition of payment of dues and breach becoming unrectifiable, resumption of land by the Collector required no interference in the Constitutional jurisdiction, in the circumstances of the case. The facts of the said case appear to be somewhat similar to the facts of the present case.