1. MUHAMMAD AKRAM, J.-This judgment will dispose of two Petitions for Special Leave to Appeal Nos.
2. 707 and 708 of 1976, arising out of a consolidated order passed by a learned Judge of the Lahore High Court at Lahore, whereby he accepted the two writ petitions filed by the respective respondent No. 1 in each case against the present petitioners.
3. The relevant facts in brief are that on the 24th of December 1959, Sher Muhammad respondent in Civil Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 707 of 1976 was allotted agricultural land measuring 102 kanals, 2 marlas situated 4 in the estate of Koth Amir Singh, Tehsil Hafizabad, District Gujranwala, temporarily for free ration in his capacity as a displaced person from the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir State. He claimed to have remained in possession of the land throughout and relied on the entries in the khasra girdawari to support him. In the year 1966, during the consolidation proceedings, better quality land measuring 72 kanals situated in the estate was given to him to lieu of his allotted land. It is alleged that on the 22nd of December 1968, the land was cancelled from his name by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner (Land), Gujranwala, because Of his alleged absence from the village and default in the payment of the dues. But a copy of this order does not seem to be available on the record although an entry to this effect was evidently incorporated in the register tanseekh on the 28th of March 1969 maintained by the Department. No effect was given to the cancellation order in the khasra girdawarl until 1974. On the 22nd of December 1971, the land was allotted to the petitioners. But no intimation to that effect was conveyed to the respondent and he was never heard before the order for the cancellation of the land was passed to his prejudice. It is stated that for the first time he came to know about the cancellation order in March 1975 when the petitioners approached him for payment of the rent.
4. Thereupon he filed the Writ Petition No. 158-R of 1976 against the present petitioners.
5. Likewise Naseebullah, respondent No. 1 in Civil Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 708 of 1976 was allotted agricultural land measuring 40 kanals 16 marlas situated in the estate of Kotli Amir Singh, Tehsil Hafizabad, District Gujranwala, temporarily for free ration in his capacity as a refugee from the occupied territory of Jammu & Kashmir State in 1959, and had continued to remain in possession of the land thus allotted to him. It was subsequently cancelled from his name without any notice to him and then allotted to the present petitioners against their verified claim under identical circumstances. Afterwards, therefore, he filed the Writ Petition No. 188-R of 1976 against the petitioners herein challenging the validity of the order cancelling the land from his name.
6. In the two writ petitions before the High Court, it was inter alias contended that under para. 4-A (ix) of Part I of Rehabilitation Settlement Scheme, land temporarily allotted to Jammu & Kashmir displaced persons was excluded from the scheme for the purpose of its allotment against the verified claim of another person and that at any rate, the respective petitioners in the two writ petitions were condemned unheard before their temporary allotments were illegally cancelled in the year 1968 in the manner stated above. On the 14th of September 1976, the learned Judge in Chambers accepted the two writ petitions filed by the respective respondents herein, by a consolidated order on the finding that :-------- " . . . . As the allotment in question had been made to the petitioners as Jammu & Kashmir refugees it could not be allotted to the respondents. The cancellation is also void and inoperative as the petitioners were neither summoned nor had they been given an opportunity of being heard."
7. In the result he quashed the impugned orders cancelling the temporary allotments of the respondents herein, as having been made without lawful authority and of no legal effect.
8. In these circumstances the petitioners filed the two respective civil petitions for special leave to appeal from the consolidated order dated 14th of June 1976, passed in the two writ petitions. We have heard the learned counsel for the petitioners in these two petitions before us. It is alleged that the writ petitions filed by the two respondents suffered from laches and should have been dismissed on that short ground alone. Moreover, according to the petitioners para. 4-A (ix) of Part of Rehabilitation Settlement Scheme, does not entitle a non-claimant from the occupied territory of Jammu & Kashmir State to retain the land that had, in 1959, been allotted to them temporarily in lieu of free ration. We find that both these objections were never raised by the petitioners at the hearing of the two writ petitions before the High Court. Even otherwise, these objections have no force and are untenable. From the facts already stated above it is evident that the lands in dispute were temporarily allotted to the respective respondents for free ration in their capacity as Jammu & Kashmir Refugees and they had continued to remain in their possession according to the entries in the khasra girdawari placed on the record before the High Court. These lands were cancelled by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner (Land) from their names in 1968 behind their back without any notices to a them. We are given to understand that even the copies of these orders) were not made available and none were placed before us. Only a reference to these orders finds mention in the entries dated 8th of March 1969 in the register tanseekh. The cancellation orders were however, not given any effect in the khasra girdawari until 1974. Before it in the year 1971 these, lands were allotted to petitioners admittedly without any notice to the respondents. It is alleged that the respondents learnt about these cancellation' orders for the first time in March 1975 when the petitioners approached them for payment of the rent in respect of these lands. The High Courti accepted the two writ petitions. The question of laches on the part of the respective respondent in filing the two writ petitions was never raised before the High Court and in these circumstances we are not inclined to entertain this plea necessitating an enquiry into various allegations for the` first time in these proceedings before us.
9. In paragraph 4-A (ix) of the Rehabilitation Settlement Scheme, Part, I, it was specifically laid down that the land allotted on temporary basis to Jammu & Kashmir refugees will not be allotted under the Rehabilitation Settlement Scheme and will remain excluded from the scheme. In the face of this express provision the two lands in dispute in the temporary allotment of the two respective respondents, in their capacities as Jammu & Kashmir refugees in lieu of free rations stood excluded from the purview of the Settlement scheme for allotment to the petitioners who arenot displaced persons from Jammu & Kashmir State against their verified claims. But in this behalf the learned counsel for the petitioner ventured to contend before us that the very provision in paragraph 4-A (ix of the scheme was rendered obsolete and inoperative for the reason that the dominant object behind the Displaced Persons (Land Settlement Act, the main Rehabilitation Settlement Scheme, the Supplementary Rural Scheme Nos. 1 and 2, was to settle the displaced persons from India and the occupied territories of the Jammu & Kashmir State on the evacuee land forming part of the compensation pool in satisfaction of their verified claims. As such, according to the learned counsel, the respondents in their capacities as non-claimants had no vested right to retain the lands in dispute in their temporary allotments which were at one time made in their favour for free rations only. He maintained that temporary allotments in their favour were made purely on ad hoc basis and these lands could no longer be retained by them because they had no claim whatever pending for satisfaction in accordance with the spirit of the Rehabilitation and Settlement laws.
10. In advancing this contention the learned counsel relied on the two unreported judgments of this Court in Civil Appeal No. 2 of 1976. In re :. Mumtaz Begum and others v. Abdul Latif and others and Civil Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 128-R of 1975. Re : Mat. Mumtaz Begum and others v.
11. Sultan Ahmad and others, both decided on the 18th of February 1976. But these two cases are distinguishable on facts. The lands in the temporary alloment of the Jammu & Kashmir refugees after their cancellation were allotted to the claimants from the occupied territories of Jammu & Kashmir State in satisfaction of their verified claim under the scheme for permanent allotment of lands to claimants from the Jammu & Kashmir State and not under the main Rehabilitation Settlement Scheme to the refugees from other places. Moreover, in these eases the land had been cancelled from the names of the appellants/petitioners at the instance of one Ali Muhammad acting as their attorney and as such any objection against it was reckoned as untenable. In this connection the learned counsel also relied on the reported case in Muhammad Shafi and 6 others v. Settlement Commissioner (Lands) and 6 others (1976 SCMR 499). That was a case of double allotment, an earlier allotment having been made in respect of the land to the contesting respondents as claimants from the occupied territories of Jammu & Kashmir State, while the petitioners who were also refugees from the Jammu & Kashmir State had no verified claim of their own. In these circumstances, this Court held that according to the scheme framed for the settlement of Jammu & Kashmir refugees, a claimant prior allottee has preference, and, therefore, the respondents were rightly found to have a preferential claim to the land. In this connection we find that in Dost Muhammad and others v. Mst. Badal Jan and others (1970 SCMR 112), this Court rightly observed that the lands allotted to Jammu and Kashmir refugees could not be cancelled without notices to them and allotted to other displaced persons in violation of paragraph 4-A (ix) of the Rehabilitation Settlement Scheme framed under the Pakistan Rehabilitation Act, 1956.
12. Even otherwise this precise argument advanced by the learned counsel although it appeared at first sight to be attractive is devoid of any force because of the special provisions contained in section 3 of the Evacuee Property and Displaced Persons Laws (Repeal) Ordinance, XV of 1974 followed by the Evacuee Property and Displaced Persons Laws (Repeal) Act, XIV of 1975. These two enactments have expressly provided for the repeal of certain laws relating to evacuee property and Rehabilitation of Displaced Persons including the Pakistan Rehabilitation Act, 1956, the Pakistan (Administration of Evacuee Property) Act, 1957, the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958 and the Displaced Persons (Land Settlement) Act, 1958. In section 3 of these two enactments it is expressly laid down that all properties, both urban and rural, including agricultural land, whether occupied or unoccupied, which may be available for disposal immediately before the repeal of the aforesaid Acts and Regulations, shall stand transferred to the Provincial Government, on payment of such price as may be fixed by it, for disposal-----
(a) in the case of urban properties, by the Provincial Government under a scheme to be prepared by it in this behalf ; and
(b) in the case of rural properties, by the Board of Revenue of the Province under a scheme to be prepared by the Provincial Government in that behalf.
13. But subsection (2) of this section expressly lays down that the agricultural land temporarily allotted under any Act or Regulation hereby repealed to a displaced person from Jammu & Kashmir State or to such other person as the Federal Government may determine who is not in cultivating possession of the allotted land, "shall be offered for sale to such allottee unless an order of ejectment has been passed against him in respect of such land". The third proviso to this subsection further lays down that in the event of a displaced person from Jammu & Kashmir State or any of his successors-in-interest being repatriated to that State, he shall pay to the Federal Government the price of the land held by him at the rate ascertained by the local Revenue authority. It is, therefore, evident that temporary allottees of agricultural land from Jammu & Kashmir StatqF were entitled to retain the same and that it had to be offered to them fort sale and these lands could not have been altotted to the petitioners who are not refugees from the Jammu & Kashmir State.
14. In the course of his arguments, the learned counsel also relied on S. Niaz Ali Shah v. Settlement Authorities through Chief Settlement Commis--sioner and another (1979 SCMR 457) and Alta Muhammad Qureshi v. The Settlement Commis--sioner, Lahore Division, Lahore and 2 others (PLD 1971 SC 61) to contend that the failure of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner in cancelling the lands from the names of the respective respondents without any notice to them was at best a curable defect. In the first mentioned case, although the Deputy Settlement Commissioner had no authority to review his order but this Court held that the Settlement Commissioner had ample power of revision suo motu under section 20(3) of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilita--tion) Act, 1958 to correct any error and bad thus cured the irregularity committed by the former. In the second case, this Court observed that the argument that the appellant had an opportunity of being heard by the Settlement Commissioner, which is a sufficient redress for his grievance was well founded when the grievance is made to rest on the principle of natural justice.
15. But in the instant case there was no such redress of the grievance against the order thus passed by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner in appeal or revision by the higher Settlement authorities and the impugned order passed by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner was lawfully quashed by the High Court, inter alia, on this ground as well.
16. For the foregoing reasons, after a careful consideration we find no force in these petitions, which are dismissed.
17. KARAM ELAHEE CHAUHAN J.-I agree. revisions by the competent authorities. Therefore, it is advisable to consult the official sources or legal professionals for the most up-to-date and accurate information.