' The land measuring 110 kanals 13 marlas, situate in Chak No, 63, Tehsil Jaranwala, District Faisalabad, was owned by one Jalla son of Bahadur, who through registered sale-deed dated 10th February 1977, sold it to Shakoor and others. Respondent No, 3 was then in cultivating possession of the land. On 2nd March 1977, he moved an application against the petitioners before the Deputy Commissioner, Faisalabad, in pursuance of Notification No, LH-III-398-77/947/LC dated 9th Marc 1977, issued by the Land Commission, Punjab under para. 4 of the Land Reforms Regulation, 1972 for restoration of the possession of the land aforesaid. It was alleged in the application that on 10th February 1977 be was forcibly ejected by the petitioners.
2. The petitioners resisted the application and took up the plea that they were dislocated from their land due to floods and the land in dispute was surrendered to them by respondent No, 3 of his own accord. They also relied on the sale-deed which bore the thumb impression of respondent No, 3, and it was stated therein that he had voluntarily handed over the possession of the land to the vendees, as he received compensation in respect of the standing crops. It may be added here that the petitioners have filed a suit for pre-emption on the strength of their relationship with the vendor. Respondent No, 3 is the rival preemptor, who has based his superior right of pre-emption on his being a tenant in the land.
3. This application was assigned to the Tehsildar with powers as A. C. I., Jaranwala. He called for a report from the Naib-Tehsildar who enjoyed the powers of Assistant Collector, Grade II. He held an inquiry, recorded the statement of respondent No, 3, who admitted his thumb impression on the sale-deed. He submitted his report to theTehsildar to the effect that the vendor willingly delivered the possession of the land to the petitioners and that there was no forcible ouster.
4. It appears that later on respondent No, 3 disowned his statement and expressed lack of confidence in the Naib-Tehsildar. In this respect he also sent telegrams to the higher revenue authorities. The Tehsildar, who himself heard the case, disagreed with the report of the Naib Tehsildar and by his order dated 8th April 1977, held that respondent No, 3 did not surrender his possession voluntarily. Accordingly, his application was accepted.
5. The petitioners filed an appeal, which was heard by the Collector. He did not rely on the statement of respondent No, 3 allegedly recorded by the Naib Tehsildar and declined to accept the version given by the petitioners as to the delivery of the possession to them by the respondent. He found that respondent No, 3 was forcibly ejected by them. In view of these findings, the appeal was rejected on 29th April, 1977.
' The learned counsel for the petitioners argued that under the Notification aforesaid the application for restoration of the possession lay to the Revenue Officer of the Helga, and that the application which was filed before the Deputy Commissioner could not have been entertained. He submitted that the petitioners were not given a proper opportunity of being heard by the Assistant Collector Grade I. In this respect he referred to the application dated 7th April 1977, filed before him, copy whereof was placed on the writ petition as Annexure H/1. Through this application a request was made for permission to produce four witnesses. The objection that the petitioners were not given an adequate opportunity of being heard was raised in this application. It was also urged that the notification, on the basis whereof respondent No, 3 moved the application for restoration of the possession, conferred jurisdiction on the Revenue Officer exercising the powers of Assistant Collector Grade I, to hear the case only if a relationship of landlord and tenant subsisted between the parties. Elaborating his, submission the learned counsel argued that such a relationship did not exist between the petitioners and respondent No,
3. The land neither belonged to the petitioners nor was respondent No, 3 inducted therein by them as a tenant. In this respect the learned counsel submitted that objection to the jurisdiction of the Assistant Collector Grade I, was taken up by the petitioners in their written statement and was also urged before him during arguments. This plea was further raised in the memorandum of appeal before the Collector, but none of the authorities below adverted to the question of jurisdiction. It was submitted that as the original order was without jurisdiction, the subsequent order passed by the learned Collector suffers from the same legal infirmity.
7. The learned counsel for the respondent, on the other hand, controverted the submissions of the petitioner's learned counsel. He argued that the impugned order was passed on 29th April 1977, whereas the writ petition was filed on 23rd May 1978, after the expiry of about 13 months and no explanation was given for this delay, the petition therefore, suffers from laches. In this respect he relied on Akhtar lqbal Puri v. Chief Settlement Commissioner and 8 others. He also submitted that a finding of fact was given by the authorities below that the petitioners ejected respondent No, 3 by force and thus took the law in their own hands. It was vehemently urged that the petitioners were trespassers and were thus not entitled to discretionary relief in exercise of the writ jurisdiction of this Court. The submission was that the grant of relief to the petitioners shall amount to putting premium on their illegal acts helping them in retention of the ill-gotten gain. In this respect the learned counsel heavily relied on Tufail Muhammad and others v. Raja Muhammad Zia Ullah Khan, Claims Commissioner, Lahore and another, Abdul Ghani v. Abdul Ghafoor and others and Wali Muhammad and others v. Sakhi Muhammad and others. On merits he contended that the notification was attracted even if the tenant was ousted by a trespasser.
8. I have fully considered the arguments advanced by the learned counsel for, the parties and examined the record. As regards the first objection of the petitioners' learned counsel, it is to be1 2 3 4 seen that under the notification the Assistant Collector 1st Grade has been empowered to hear the case. The fact that the application was addressed to the Deputy Commissioner, does not detract from its sustenance, for it was ultimately heard and disposed of by the Assistant Collector Grade I, who had jurisdiction in the matter. This order was challenged in appeal A by the petitioners before the Collector. No such objection was taken up by them before the authorities below. This objection, therefore, Cannot be permitted to be raised for the first time before the High Court.
9. The ground that the petitioners were not given an adequate opportunity of being heard, is also not well-founded. I have examined the memorandum of appeal filed by them before the Collector.
No such ground was agitated before the authorities blow. This objection also fails.
10. Before examining the question of jurisdiction, the respondent's plea that the writ petition suffers from laches may be looked into, In Akhtar lqbal's case the impugned order was passed on 9th November 1966. The petition was drafted on 21st September 1967 but filed on 22nd May 1969. No plausible explanation was given for the delay and the learned Single Judge came to the conclusion that the petitioner deliberately did not file the writ petition earlier, as he was pursuing his case regarding another property and after it had been transferred to him he thought of filing the writ in question. It was under these circumstances, that the petition was dismissed on the ground of laches. These facts, however, do not obtain in the instant case. The delay alone is not sufficient to non-suit a petitioner. It is the delay coupled with other conduct of the petitioner amounting to estoppel against him, that the petition may be dismissed on the ground of ]aches. The rule laid down by a Division Bench of this Court in Miraj-ud-din v. The Senior Superintendent of Police, Lahore District, Lahore and others was :- "It may be remarked that except when there is a bar of limitation, the delay simpliciter has never been treated as a bar. Laches has often been defined as such negligence or omission to assert a right, as, taken in conjunction with the great lapse of time and other circumstances, causes prejudice to an adverse party. If a person seeking a remedy has not committed such a delay as would cause prejudice to the other side or would amount to waiver or acquiescence on the part of the person seeking the remedy, technical plea of laches, by itself, would not be sufficient to bar the remedy."
' It has not been shown that the petitioner abandoned or waived his right or otherwise acquiesced in the sustenance of the impugned order. It was also not pointed out that the respondent was in any manner prejudiced by the conduct of the petitioner. This objection is, therefore, not tenable.
10. It is evident from the record that the petitioner raised objection to the jurisdiction of the Assistant Collector as well as that of the Collector to hear the case. For determination of the scope of the notification qua the jurisdiction of the Revenue Officer, it appears appropriate to re-produce hereunder the relevant extract thereof : "(1) A tenant who is or has been ejected or dispossessed from his tenancy in an unauthorised manner, may make an application to a revenue officer of the area concerned...
(2) On receiving an application under clause (1) the revenue officer shall hold an enquiry and if he is satisfied, after giving an opportunity of being heard to the landlord, that the ejectment was unauthorised, he shall order the restoration of the tenancy."
' It is quite clear to me that the jurisdiction of the revenue officers depended on the submission of an application by a tenant against the landlord. It is not disputed that the relationship of landlord and tenant did not exist between the parties. Respondents Nos 1 and 2 therefore, had no jurisdiction to pass the impugned orders. Since an objection as to their jurisdiction was raised by the petitioner, it was obligatory fort' (1) PLD 1970 Lah. 569 Respondents Nos 1 and 2 to have first decided this point, before assuming! Jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the merits of the case. There is no merit in the contention of the respondent's learned counsel that the existence of relationship of landlord and5 tenant does not constitute the jurisdictional facts sine qua non for assumption of jurisdiction by the revenue officers.
12. It was to save the impugned orders from being struck down because of the jurisdictional defect, that the learned counsel for the respondent had to refer to finding of the Tribunals below, to Advocate that the petitioners were trespassers and writ could not be issued in their favour in aid of injustice. The ratio of the case-law cited by the learned counsel in this connection is that the writ jurisdiction cannot be invoked in aid of injustice and to help retention of ill-gotten gains. The precedents cited by the learned counsel are distinguishable. The invocation of jurisdiction of this Court by the petitioners is not unconstrained. They have been forced by the respondents to approach the High Court. The reason being that they on their part objected to the jurisdiction of the revenue officers, but the respondents did not accept this contention, resulting in passing of the impugned orders which suffer from jurisdictional error. In such like cases where power is usurped by a Tribunal and its order displays a manifest illegality for want of jurisdiction, refusal of writ will be an erosion of the doctrine of judicial review. In Rahim Shah v. Chief Election Commissioner the Supreme Court quoted with approval the view taken by Denning, L.J. In the case of Northumberland Compensation Appeal Tribunal and it was observed :- "Certiorari provides a supervisory control that extends not only to see that the inferior Tribunals keep within their jurisdiction, but also to see that they observe law."
' In Rex v. Stafford Justices Sir Wilfred Greene M. R. Held :- "Now in my opinion, the order for the issue of the writ of certiorari is, except in cases where it goes as of course, strictly in all cases a matter of discretion. It is perfectly true to say that if no special circumstances exist, and if all that appears is a clear excess of jurisdiction, then a person aggrieved by that is entitled ex debit justified to his order."
' While dealing with the question of jurisdiction, in Farquharson v. Morgan , Lord Halsbury was of the view :- "It has been long settled that, where an objection to the jurisdiction of an inferior Court appears on the face of the proceedings, it is immaterial by what means and by whom the Court is informed of the objection. The Court must protect the prerogative of the Crown and the due course of the administration of justice by prohibiting the inferior Court from proceeding in matter as to which it is apparent that it has no jurisdiction."
' In this view of the matter, I feel that the petitioner cannot be denied the relief on the ground canvassed by the respondent's learned counsel.
13. This writ petition is, therefore, accepted with costs and the impugned orders declared to have been passed without lawful authority. PLD 1977 Lab. 249 PLD 1965 SC 269 1968 SCMR 1378 PLD 1974 SC 106 PLD 1970 Lah. 569 PLD 1973 SC 24 L (1940) 2 K 13 33 (1894) 1 Q B 552 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.