' The petitioners have invoked the Constitutional jurisdiction of this Court for challenging the orders of the Chairman, Federal Land Comino, made on 3rd August, 1974 whereby the sale effected by two mutations Nos. 60 and 61 of Village Rawal, Tebsil Pindigheb, District Campbellpur, by the two declarants Malika Niaz Begum and Malika Sanam Iqbal were held, under the Land Reforms Regulation, to be void and the property so alienated was held to be the ownership of the declarants.
2. Malika Niaz Begum and Malika Sanam Iqbal the daughters of Malik Muhammad Iqbal were the owners of extensive agricultural land in District Campbellpur. By mutation No, 60 dated 25th October, 1970 Malika Niaz Begum sold land equal to 6375 P. I. U. To Asif Hayat etc. By another mutation No, 61 of the same village attested on the same date, Malika Sanarn Iqbal sold an area equal to 6375 P. I. U. To Abdul Latif etc. The total amount received as sale price for the two transactions was Rs, 72,000 the area was 4,805 kanals, 12 marlas. These transactions were first examined by the Land Commissioner who by an order dated 6th June, 1972 held them to be bona fide. This order was, however, reviewed by the Land Commissioner on 12th January 1973 and both these transactions were held void. Appeals were preferred by the declarants and these were disposed of by the Additional Chief Land Commissioner, Punjab, by his order dated 23rd October, 1973. Against this decision Abdur Razzaque, a tenant of the land so affected, filed a revision petition which was heard and disposed of by the Chairman, Federal Land Commission. An objection was taken with regard to the locus standi of Abdur Razzaque as an affected tenant to file the revision petition whereupon the Chairman, Federal Land Commission, proceeded "to decide the case in exercise of sou motu revisional jurisdiction." The Chairman also found that the Additional Chief Land Commissioner had proceeded on wrong assumptions with regard to the onus in the matter of proving bona fide and observed as follows: "The burden to prove that the transactions were valid and bona fide is therefore, heavily on the declarants or on the beneficiaries of the transactions. The learned Additional C. L. C. Has however put the cart before the horse and has assumed that it was for the petitioners or other persons to prove that the transactions were fake."
' After so settling the question of burden of proof the Chairman Federal Land Commission proceeded to examine in detail the bona fide of the two sale transactions and on the basis of numerous factors came to the conclusion that they were not bona fide. He, therefore, accepted the revision, set aside the order of the Additional Chief Land Commissioner and did not allow the petitioners the benefit of the two sales. The factors which were noted for drawing this conclusion were that the consideration which was paid was extremely inadequate, the parties to the sale were complete strangers and the vendees did not visit the land either before or after the transactions nor had they contacted their tenants, the Roznamcha Waqiati in which contemporaneous entry was made in respect of these transactions appeared to have been tampered with. The vendees share remained joint and unspecified. The entries in the Khasra Girdawari were also in a suspicious state.
3. The petitioners have now invoked the following grounds for challenging the adjudication in the Constitutional jurisdiction :
(i) The Chairman of the Federal Land Commission could not, while sitting singly, exercise powers of the Commission under para 29 of the Land Reforms Regulation. For this reliance is placed on Ashiq Mohammad Khan v. Chairman, Federal Land Commission and others PLD 1977 Lah.
461.
(ii) The tenants who had moved the petition were not persons aggrieved under para 29 and could not move such a petition.
(iii) If the exercise of jurisdiction by the Chairman Federal Land Commission be held to be suo motu, then the petitioners had not sufficient opportunity to meet the case which was ultimately made a ground for interference with the sale transactions.
(iv) The question of onus relatable to para 7 (1) (b) has not been answered correctly particularly so when the Additional Chief Land Commissioner had recorded a finding in favour of the petitioners.
(v) There has been large scale misreading of evidence for drawing conclusions on factual matters like the transfer of possession, the inadequacy of the price, the entries in the Roznamcha Waqiati and the Khasra Girdawri.
4. As regards the first ground, viz., the capacity of the Chairman to deal with matter singly, attention has been drawn to Ordinance XXIX of 1978 whereunder provision was made : "To validate certain orders passed by the Chairman or a Member of the Federal Land Commission."
' It was promulgated as it had become expedient to validate certain orders passed by the Chairman or a Member of the Federal Land Commission. The validation clause provided as follows : "Notwithstanding any order or decision of any Court, any order passed by the Chairman or by a Member of the Federal Land Commission at any time before the commencement of this Ordinance and purporting to be in exercise of the authority conferred on the Chairman and Members of the Commission by an order of the Federal Government under paragraph 29 of the Land Reforms Regulation, 1972, shall be deemed to have been validly passed and shall have and shall be deemed always to have had, effect accordingly."
The three features of this Ordinance already noted do indicate that there was some matter which but for this validation was considered to be not valid and it was sought by this Ordinance to validate it. It validates all those acts which could be done by the Chairman and Members of the Commission under paragraph 29 of the Land Reforms Regulation but had been done individually either by the Chairman or a Member of the Federal Land Commission. The effect of the decision in Ashiq Mohammad Khan was exactly one of holding that the power under para. 29 was conferred by the Federal Government on the Chairman and the Members of the Commission and could not be exercised by the Chairman alone and on that account was defective in law. The validation remedies this deficiency and the deeming clause makes it valid. This objection, therefore, no longer holds good.
5. As regards the next objection, there were three reasons given by the Chairman Federal Land Commission for proceeding in the manner in which he did. In the first place, it was stated that the petitioners before him were already parties before the Land Commission and the Additional Chief Land Commissioner and from that position could bring the matter in controversy to his forum for adjudication or attention. It is true that these tenants may not have a substantial interest to make their presence necessary in such adjudication but their participation in proceedings out of which the controversy arose would entitle them to pursue it in other and higher forums available in the hierarchy. It has not been mentioned or otherwise brought out on record that these revisions were barred by time or otherwise did not satisfy the requirements in the matter.
6. The other ground given for entertaining and proceeding with the adjudication was that he had the sou motu powers and was exercising the same if for any reason the revisions were not competent. In case of Ashiq Mohammad Khan v. Chairman, Federal Land Commission, it has been held that the exercise of authority under clause (a), and clause (b) of paragraph 29 proviso, was not entertain able and cannot be intermingled. It is not difficult to visualize a situation where the same party may, instead of putting the grievance in writing may orally move the Chairman and he may proceed in the manner that he did, whereupon it would be difficult to distinguish whether it was an exercise of jurisdiction under clause (a) or clause (b). It would, therefore, ultimately depend upon the mental state and not upon the physical appurtenances leading to the exercise of jurisdiction. If in a situation brought to his notice either orally or in writing r otherwise coming to his knowledge, because the Chairman Federal Land commission must have a source outside himself for exercising suo motu jurisdiction, he chooses to consciously exercise his suo motu jurisdiction, further inquiry as to the source of his information need not be undertaken such awareness was manifestly present and exhibited in this case.
7. The grounds have not to be formally formulated, reduced to writing and communicated to the party in a case where suo motu jurisdiction is exercised. Powers possessed under para 29 are one of general examination of the case as a whole and not on any specific ground. The scope of the activity is determined by the law under which it is undertaken to para. 7 (1) (b) in this case.
Therefore, the petitioners cannot make much of the fact that they were not individually and formally informed for each of the grounds that was going to be made the basis of the decision against them. That would be almost an impossibility and would amount to pre-judging the case.
As regards some of the hearings which took place in their absence but in the presence of the other party, it has to be noted that in subsequent hearings they participated without any objection and were allowed opportunity to get such information as they asked for. It would, therefore, be not possible to make this to be a good ground.
8. A bare examination of para. 7 clause (I) (b) would show that transaction made during the specified period was to be deemed always to have been void unless the Commission was satisfied that it was a bona fide transaction. On this principle the rule of decision should have been D that the transaction is void unless the satisfaction of the Commission is that it was bona fide. The Additional Chief Land Commissioner was in error in thinking otherwise for he very clearly proceeded on the following assumptions : "In the presence of all this evidence only very strong proof can be relied upon to show that the transactions were in fact fake transactions. No substantial evidence has been produced in this regard.
9. The alternative argument with regard to the onus of proof was that as the Additional Chief Land Commissioner had come to a conclusion that the transactions were bona fide, the standard of proof should have been as pointed out by the Additional Chief Land Commissioner. This argument cannot stand because if the legal basis about the kind of proof that was required is itself mistaken, the conclusion cannot be protected and if the conclusion cannot be protected then the scrutiny of the Chairman Federal Land Commission would be as required under para 7 (I) (b). The satisfaction had to be of the person scrutinizing the transaction and in case such satisfaction was not derivable the transaction must be held to be void.
10. As regards the grounds of fact, it must be made clear that this Court is not ordinarily in a position to make any estimate, about the entries of the Khasra Girdawri, about the conduct of the Patwari, the vendor and the vendees. These are matters which bad to be attended to by the statutory authorities who were also in the same hierarchy, the custodians of the revenue record from where such satisfaction had to be derived. The learned counsel has addressed sufficiently lengthy arguments on these aspects of the case but I find that it cannot be said to be a case of no evidence or inference so perverse on facts as to require interference in the Constitutional jurisdiction of this Court. It is just not possible to do that on the material on record. Therefore, I do not consider it at all necessary to go into the factual details of the submissions.
11. There was also a contention that the Chairman bore malice towards the landlords of the district and in particular, the vendors declarants and that the entire exercise started at a stage when the Chairman was touring the district. There was an objection taken but it did not prevail with the Chairman. There was no specific bias against the petitioners as such and this distinguishes it from what is contained in Ashig Muhammad Khan's decision. The allegation is that he had the general bias against the landlords. That may be so, but it did not incapacitate the Chairman from taking up and deciding an individual dispute. The material on the record is not such as may bring out this fact.
12. In the circumstances I find no merit in this petition, which is dismissed with costs.