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‑‑‑S. 54‑‑Sale‑deed executed by attorney‑‑Wrong reference to power of attorney in the sale‑deed‑‑Effect‑‑Mere wrong reference to document, of power of attorney, in sale‑deed, executed by attorney in favour of vendee, held, would no invalidate the sale‑deed.‑‑[Power of attorney].

‑‑‑S. 115‑‑Revisional jurisdiction against concurrent findings of fact‑ Competency of‑‑Concurrent findings of Courts below based on evidence on record, held, could not be interfered with by High Court in revisional jurisdiction, in absence of error of jurisdiction.

Messrs Ghulam Farid Muhammad Latif and others v. The Central Bark of India Limited, Lahore P L D 1954 Lah. 575 rel.

‑‑‑Art. 114‑‑Estoppel‑‑Alienation of house by attorney on basis of power of attorney‑‑Power of attorney subsisting even to date‑‑Effect‑ Grantor of power of attorney, held, could not be allowed to approbate and reprobate into owning such actions of attorney as suit him and disowning those actions which did not suit him‑‑Person could not back out from authority persistently and repeatedly exercised on his behalf by his attorney for a period of more than two decades‑‑Where such a person had never challenged before, authority of his attorney, and had in fact retified acts of such attorney, bar of estoppel would surely be attracted against him.‑‑[Power of attorney‑ ‑Estoppel .

Zulfiqar Haider etc. v. Settlement Commissioner etc P L D 1979 Lah. 27 rel.

‑‑‑S. 4‑‑Registration Act (XVI of 1908), S. 17‑‑Power of attorney‑ Registration of document constituting power of attorney, whether necessary‑‑Power of attorney, held, was neither a document which could in itself either operate to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish any right, title or interest in any immovable property nor would it even purport to do so‑‑Power of attorney therefore, did not fall under S. 17(1)(a) of Registration Act and was exempted from registration.

Mian Nisar Ahmad for Petitioner.

Petitioner filed a declaratory suit to challenge a registered sale‑deed executed on 4‑6‑1981 by his son defendant No.l in favour of defendant No.2 with regard to a house in 3 marlas 3 sarsahis, described as bearing number P.81 Khasra No.971/2, Khewat No. 688/ 617, Khatooni No.‑761 of the Jamabandi for the years 1977‑78 in Chak No.212/RB, Faisalabad; as being illegal, void and without lawful authority, with a prayer for grant of perpetual injunction restraining defendant No.2 from acting on the aforesaid sale‑deed which was also prayed to be cancelled in the Registration Books of the Sub‑Registrar, Faisalabad. Both the defendants contested the suit by means of independent written‑statements filed for canvassing validity of the sale. The vendee‑defendant No.2 pleaded also that the suit was collusive between the father and son and, while denying that the plaintiff may have any cause of action or locus standi to file the

I suit, raised the plea of estoppel against the plaintiff to have resulted from his conduct. He also prayed for award of compensatory costs for the suit filed against him being frivolous. A total of nine issues, including that of the relief, were set down for trial. Whereas defendant No.l did not take any further interest in contesting the suit and simply disappeared from the scene, the suit was contested by defendant No.2 alone. Apart from the oral evidence examined by the parties, on behalf of the plaintiff a certified copy of the impugned sale‑deed was produced as Exh.P.3 in addition to producing a newspaper clipping as Exh.P.4, and the deeds of general power‑of‑attorney executed by him in favour of Aftab Ahmad Khan and Habib‑ur‑Rehman as Exhs. 1 and P.2. As against this, 17 documents were adduced by the contesting defendant No.2 to prove that defendant No.l had actually been constituted his general attorney by the plaintiff and he has been as such dealing with the house in suit for a period of more , than 20 years from 1960 to 1981 and had even secured the transfer of this erstwhile evacuee house from the Settlement Department in the name of his father by filing a C.H. Form and completing the necessary formalities in connection therewith, so much so that he had even mortgaged this house in favour of the National Bank of Pakistan by way of a collateral security for the loan of Rs.40,000 secured by the plaintiff and had even contested a suit on behalf of the plaintiff which had been filed against him by the Bank for recovery of the loan and ultimately discharged the liability by making the payment of the due amount to the Bank out of the sale proceeds of the house in dispute secured from the vendee‑defendant No.2 to whom the house had actually been sold for a sum of Rs.1,10,000 but for reasons of convenience had got entered the sale‑consideration as Rs.9,000 only in the sale‑deed Exh.D.ll. After considering the entire evidence, learned trial Judge upheld the general power of attorney Exh. D.4 dated 9‑5‑1963 executed by the plaintiff in favour of his son defendant No.l with regard to the house in dispute to be a genuine document drawn up by the plaintiff at Ankra in the Embassy of Pakistan for Turkey and also made a pointed reference to his consistent dealing with the house in dispute as furnishing ample evidence of the existence

R in defendant No.l of the authority for this purpose, if not expressed enough, at least, fairly implied in the plaintiff having ratified the transactions entered into by defendant No.l whereby estoppel by conduct also arose against the plaintiff inasmuch as he had not entered the witness box now and had never before challenged his authority which had been manifestly and openly exercised by him since the year 1960 and dismissed the suit on 29‑4‑1985 by returning findings adverse to the plaintiff under issues No.2 and 8.

2. In appeal thereagainst filed by the plaintiff, a learned Additional District Judge reconsidered the evidence existing on the record and affirming the findings of the trial Court, dismissed the appeal on 17‑6‑1987 by upholding the decree of the trial Court. The plaintiff has now come up to this Court on revision.

3. It is argued that a fictitious entry about some power‑of‑attorney bearing No. 3272 dated 11‑8‑1964 had been dishonestly made in the sale‑deed Exh.D.ll inasmuch as there was no such document registered at that number which actually relates to the mortgage‑deed (Exh:D.8) executed by defendant No.l in favour of the National Bank with regard to the house in dispute and even the deed of general power‑of attorney Exh.D.4. now relied upon in support of the alleged authority to sell, is a forged and fictitious document. It is contended, in the alternate, also that this document is ineffectual for sale of the house in dispute inasmuch as such a power had not been conferred thereby and, so also, because it had not been registered as required by section 17 of the Registration Act.

4. I do not find any merit in either of those contentions. A mere wrong reference to the document of power‑of‑attorney in the sale‑deed (Exh.D.ll) executed by defendant No.l in favour of defendant No.2 does not invalidate the sale‑deed. It has been concurrently found by the two Courts below on the basis of evidence led by the parties that the original of Exh. 1).11 is a genuine document executed by the plaintiff in favour of defendant No.l at the Embassy of Pakistan in Turkey and it also bears the seal of the Embassy and is even witnessed by two employees therein, whereby vast powers had been conferred on him with regard to the house in dispute, including even the power to sell it which is, at least, implied sufficiently in the power so conferred on him. There is no error of jurisdiction pointed out by the learned counsel to have been involved in reaching the said findings which have, therefore, to be treated as sacrosanct for the purpose of revision. The plaintiff has been accepting for a period of more than 20 years the existence of a power in defendant No.l to alienate the house. in dispute and has even ratified the transaction of mortgage created by him. It has been held in Zulfiqar Haider etc. v. Settlement Commissioner etc. P L D 1979 Lahore 27 that the grantor of a power‑of‑attorney cannot be allowed to approbate and reprobate into owning such actions of the attorney as suit him and disowning those actions which do not suit him. There is no reason to allow the plaintiff to back out from the authority persistently and repeatedly exercised on his behalf by . defendant No.l for a period of more than two decades, from the time of filing a L. H . Form on his behalf for transfer to him of the house in dispute and even securing its transfer on that basis in the name of the plaintiff. He has all along owned all the acts performed by defendant No.l as binding on him and has even ratified them in the past so that he has never before challenged his authority in that behalf wherefore the bar of estoppel also gets squarely attracted against him. It deserves to be mentioned also that it is not the case of the plaintiff that he has at any stage cancelled the authority of defendant No.l so much so that even in this case he has himself not at all entered the witness‑box to make such an assertion and the newspaper clippping Exh.P.4 has also been rightly rejected below for the reason of its having been got inserted through some Mushtaq Ahmad of Afghan Colony, Quetta. A power‑of‑attorney is not a document which may in itself either operate to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish any right title or interest in any immovable property nor does it even purport to do so and hence it does not fall under section 17(1)(a) of the Registration Act and even gets excepted front the purview of subsection (1) by virtue of clause (v) of subsection (2) thereof inasmuch as it only leads to the coming .into existence of another document having such an effect about right, title or interest. Moreover, since the plaintiff, a principal in this case, was not residing

in Pakistan at the relevant time, therefore, the power‑of‑attorney Exh.D.4 was rightly available under section 33(1)(c) for registration of sale‑deed Exh. 1).11 under section 32(c) of the Act. Contentions of the learned counsel fail for all the foregoing reasons.

5. Learned counsel has not addressed any argument against the findings reached by the two Courts below under issue No.2 relating to estoppel and this finding is alone sufficient to dislodge the plaintiff.

6. Even otherwise, since I am satisfied that substantial justice[ has been done between the parties in dismissing the suit of the plaintiff, therefore, as has been held in Messrs Ghulam Farid Muhammad Latif and others v. The Central Bank of India Limited, Lahore P L D 1954 Lahore 575 on the basis of a large number of decided cases, this does not appear to be a fit case for exercise of discretionary power of revision. Hence, dismissed in limine.

A.A. /M‑417/L Revision dismissed.

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