1. MUHAMMAD HALEEM, J.-This order will dispose of Civil Review Petitions Nos. 34 and 35 of 1971. Both of them are directed against the order of this Court dated 20tb of October, 1971, passed in Civil Appeals Nos. 36 and 37 of 1970 whereby the order of the High Court dated 26th of May, 1969 in Writ Petition No. 1142 of 1965 was set aside and the sale of the land to the petitioner under the sale deed executed on 1st of May, 1964, was declared as without lawful authority and the Custodian was directed to cancel the sale deed and to refund to the petitioner the sum of Rs. 6,27,037.50.
2. The facts of the case are sufficiently stated in the judgment and need not be recapitulated here.
3. Mr. Khalid Anwar, learned counsel for the petitioner attacked the judgment of this Court principally on four grounds, namely :-
(a) That out of 2508 kanals and 7 marlas of land sold to the petitioners on 1st of May, 1964, by the Custodian of Evacuee Property, Khasra Nos. 1414-Min, 1415, 1416 to 1429, 1482, 1483, 1491 to 1494, 1494- Min, 1496-Min and 1498-Min measuring 406 Kanals and 1 Marta did not form part of the scheme prepared by the Lahore Improvement Trust and, therefore, it was not acquired by it for the proposed Punjab University Campus and should have been excluded ;
(b) that in view of the compromise entered into between the Lahore Improvement Trust and the petitioner on 12th of March, 1971 during the pendency of the Letters Patent Appeal, the Letters Patent Bench erred in not giving effect to it on the objection raised by the Punjab University ;
(c) that this Court has erred in construing section 36 of the Town Improvement Act, 1922, inasmuch as it violated section 12 of Ordinance 15 of 1949 as the land was evacuee ; and
(d) that this Court wrongly construed sections 24 and 28 of the Town Improvement Act, 1922.
4. As regards the first contention, it was not raised before the High Court but in para. 16(1) of the concise statement it was pleaded but again it was not agitated at the hearing of the appeal.
5. Nevertheless we directed the counsel to refer us the notification by which the land situate in village Bhikewal was acquired but he was unable to do so. He however, relied the copy of the Award at page 15 of the green file and the statement showing description of the Khasra numbers with the total area acquired by the Lahore Improvement Trust at page 30 of the same file. In the absence of the notification it is not possible to conclude, as was contended, that these Khasra numbers were excluded from the above document. In order to succeed, the exclusion of the Khasra numbers should have been patent on the record which is not so. Therefore, on a point of principle, even otherwise this contention cannot be entertained, for, it was not raised either in the High Court or at the hearing of the appeal.
6. Against this reasoning the learned counsel contended that it was the Trust which had the legal entitlement to the land as neither in the notice dated 31st of March, 1954, issued under section 36 of the Act nor in the scheme sanctioned and published on 24th of January, 1957, under section 41 of the Act was any mention made of the land having been acquired for the Punjab University. It was further added that the Punjab University had surrendered the disputed land in 1962 to the Lahore Improvement Trust as per para. 5 of the petition for leave to appeal and, therefore, it had no legal right to object to the compromise. As for the surrender of the land to the Lahore Improvement Trust, this point was neither raised in the High Court nor at the hearing of the appeal and even otherwise it was later agreed in a meeting held on 27th of June, 1967, that it be returned to the Punjab University in case the Writ Petition filed by the Lahore Improvement Trust succeeded. Apart. From the fact that this contention could not be entertained, the legal interest of the Punjab University in the land acquired was manifest by the fact that it had paid Rs. 20,000.00 for the purchase of the land ; and that further the area for the Punjab University was included in the scheme. It, therefore, mattered not if there was no reference to the acquisition of the land for the Punjab University Campus. Accordingly it was rightly held by the Court that the compromise could not have been effected without the concurrence of the Punjab University.
7. While disposing of the third contention this Court held : "As notification of the scheme was not covered by any of these legal processes, Mr. Ghias Muhammad relied on the words `or other order of whatever kind' in the second part of subsection
(1) of section 12. This clause, however, is qualified by the words `Shall be granted or made by any court'. The notice issued under section 36 of the Town Improvement Act was, therefore, not covered by subsection (1) of section 12 of Ordinance 15 of 1949 and the learned Judges erred in arriving at the contrary conclusion."
8. The learned counsel contended that this Court overlooked the words "or any other authority" which could appropriately include a notice issued under section 36 of the Town Improvement Act and, therefore, it was invalid. Whatever may be the implication of this contention, the legal position is that even if the construction is erroneous still it cannot be regarded as an error apparent on the face of the record so as to invite interference in review jurisdiction.
9. As to the fourth ground, the learned counsel took exception to the conclusion of this Court namely, that "a plain reading of these sections makes out that scheme framed under section 24 may provide for all or any one of the matters provided in it. The Scheme may thus provide for acquisition of the land only and that seems to be the case here." The precise objection of the learned counsel was that the scheme did not provide for the development of the Campus as was required by section 24. It only gave the bounded area to be acquired for the University Campus which could not be construed as a development scheme. Therefore, it was an acquisition simpliciter under section 28 and not for the development of any locality as provided by section 24.
10. A reference to the site plan marked B. B. And B. B. 1 reflects the bounded area in the scheme acquired for the University Campus. This, as was held by this Court, can be construed as a development scheme and, therefore, the aforementioned conclusion of this Court cannot be assailed in review jurisdiction on the ground that such a construction is not possible on the language of these two sections.
11. Lastly, we may point out that it was not a rehearing of the appeal and, therefore, it was not permissible to raise either a new ground or that which had not been argued in the manner in which' it was raised before us.
12. Accordingly, we find no substance in the petitions which are dismissed.