' KHALIL-UR-REHMAN RAMDAY, J.--- Three daughters of one Rana Sultan Ahmed sold the suit-land to the present respondents through a registered sale-deed, allegedly for a consideration of Rs,6,00,000. Zafar Iqbal Hameed Khan petitioner pre-empted the said sale through a suit filed in the Court of a learned Civil Judge at Shujabad claiming inter alia, that the consideration for the said sale was in fact Rs,2, 00,000 and that an exaggerated sale price had been mentioned in the sale- deed only to deter the prospective pre-emptors from exercising their right of pre-emption. The petitioner's suit was decreed through a judgment of the learned trial Judge, dated 13-6-1984. The said judgment and the resultant decree were maintained by the First Appellate Court through a judgment, dated 15-11-1986. A second appeal bearing R.S.A. No,118 of 1986 filed by the vendees was, however, allowed through a judgment of the Multan Bench of Lahore High Court, dated 29-6-2000 whereby the judgments and decrees of the two learned subordinate Courts were set aside and the suit of the petitioner was consequently dismissed.
2. Zafar Iqbal Hameed Khan Pre-emptor impugned the said judgment of the Lahore High Court before this Court through Civil Petition No,2445-L of 2000. The office raised an objection that since the value of the subject-matter of the dispute in the Court of first instance was admittedly more than Rs,50,000 and since the impugned judgment of the Lahore High Court had set aside the judgment and decree of the Court immediately below it, therefore, the said petition was not maintainable because an appeal lay to this Court from the said judgment in view of the provisions of Article 185(2)(d) of the Constitution.
3. Zafar petitioner did not accept this objection and insisted that the said petition was competent because the jurisdictional value of the suit stood fixed at Rs,8,694 which was less than Rs,50,000.
He, however, submitted, in the alternative, that if this submission of the petitioner did not find favor with this Court then the petition be treated as an appeal and the delay which had occurred in the filing of the same be condoned.
4. We have heard the learned Advocate Supreme Court for the petitioner at some length and have benefited from the submissions made by him in support of the above noticed contentions.
5. The first questions which requires resolution is whether this petition filed by Zafar petitioner had been competently filed or whether it was only an appeal which was maintainable before this Court in the present case.
6. Article 185 of the Constitution confers jurisdiction on this Court to hear and determine appeals from the judgments, decrees, final orders and sentences of a High Court. The six clauses of sub- Article (2) of this Article 185 talk of judgments, decrees, orders and sentences which are appealable before this Court. And sub-Article (3) of the said Article states that a petition seeking leave to appeal shall be competent only in situations which were not covered by sub-Article (2) of the said Article 185.
7. What follows, therefore, is that a petition under Article 185(3) of the Constitution would be maintainable before this Court only where it could be shown that the case was one which was not covered by the said sub-Article (2) meaning thereby that a petition for leave to appeal could be entertained by this Court only in cases which fell outside the purview of Article 185(2) of the Constitution and such a petition would be incompetent if the judgment or order etc. Sought to be impugned, was appealable. Maintainability of a petition under. Article 185(3) was thus, conditional upon the non-availability of a right of appeal under Article 185(2) of the Constitution.
8. In the case before us, the Honourable High Court had set aside the appellate judgment of the Court immediately below it and it was also a case where the value of the subject-matter of the dispute in the Court of first instance as also in the Appellate Court was not less than fifty thousand rupees. Needless to add that the subject-matter of the dispute in the present case was the suit- land which, according to the pre-emptor petitioner was worth rupees two lakhs and which according to the vendee-respondent was worth rupees six lakhs but which, in any case, was more than fifty thousand rupees. The situation is, therefore, covered by sub-Article (2) of Article 185 of the Constitution. The relevant part of the said provision reads as under:-- "185(1) ...........................................................................
(2) An appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court from any judgment, decree, final order or sentence of a High Court---
(a) to (c) ...........................................................................
(d) if the amount or value of the subject-matter of the dispute in the Court of first instance was and also in dispute in appeal is, not less than fifty thousand rupees or such other sum as may be specified in that behalf by Act of Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) and the judgment, decree or final order appealed from has varied or set aside the judgment, decree or final order of the Court immediately below; or
(e) and (t) ...........................................................................
(3) .......................................................................................
(Emphasis is ours).
9. The learned Advocate Supreme Court for the petitioner, referring to the provisions of section 18 of the West Pakistan Civil Courts Ordinance of 1962, however, submitted that the factor determining the availability or non-availability of the right of appeal was dependent upon the value of the suit which in the present case, as has been mentioned above, stood fixed at Rs,8,694. The relevant part of the said provisions of section 18 reads as under:-- "18. Appeals from Civil Judges.--- (1) Save as aforesaid, an appeal from a decree or order of a Civil Judge shall lie-
(a) to the High Court if the value of the original suit in which the decree or order was made exceeds fifty thousand rupees; and
10. The submission is misconceived because appeals to this Court from the judgments etc. Of a High Court are not governed by the said section 18 of the Ordinance of 1962 but are regulated by Article 185(2) of the Constitution. Therefore, whatever may have been provided by the said section 18 was irrelevant for our purposes and what was relevant to resolve the present controversy was clause (d) of sub-Article (2) of Article 185 of the Constitution which declared the value of the subject-matter of the dispute to be the determining factor as against the provisions of the said section 18 which talked of the value of the original suit to Le the guiding factor. Needless to add that the value of the subject-matter of the dispute in the present case was, admittedly, more than rupees fifty thousand.
11. In this view of the matter, the impugned judgment of the High, Court could be questioned before this Court only through an appeal under Article 185(2) of the Constitution and a petition under Article 185(3) was, therefore, not competent.
12. Ch. Imdad Ali Khan, the learned Advocate Supreme Court for the petitioner then, relying upon Haji Muhammad Nawaz v. Hussain Shah 1990 SCM R 1621; Chairman N.-W.F.P. Forest Development Corporation and others v. Khurshid Anwar Khan and others 1992 SCM R 1202 and Inayatullah Khan v.
Obaidullah Khan and others 1999 SCM R 2702, submitted that this petition be treated, today on 9-5- 2005, as an appeal against the judgment of the Lahore High Court passed about five years ago and that the delay of the said about five years be condoned.
13. We have considered this request of the petitioner but do not feel persuaded to grant the same.
14. The precedent cases cited by the learned Advocate Supreme Court cannot be understood as laying down a law that whenever a litigant is negligent in the matter of reading a simple provision of the Constitution and whenever he files a petition which is not competent and whenever he insists on the maintainability of such a petition despite an objection and a warning from the office of this Court, then this Court must always treat such a petition as an appeal and that this Court must feel further obliged, in all such cases, to condone the delay which was caused only and only through the negligence of such a litigant.
15. The above-mentioned authorities are, in fact, only some of the situations where this Court had shown indulgence in some given cases. We have however, noticed lately that such a laxity shown by this Court was encouraging negligence and carelessness instead of breeding caution and diligence. Therefore, we consider it neither appropriate nor desirable to continue to show such a lenient tolerant treatment to one party at the cost of the other. As has been noticed above, the provisions of Article 185(2)(d) of the Constitution are couched in rather simple words which do not admit of any ambiguity and confusion. The least that can be said about a party filing a petition under Article 185(3) of the Constitution when it has a right to file an appeal under Article 185(2)(d), is that such a party is grossly negligent. Needless to add that the law favors only the diligent and not the negligent.
16. Having thus, considered the matter in issue from all angles, we do not feel persuaded to come to the aid of the petitioner. This petition is, therefore, dismissed as being incompetent.