' This constitutional petition challenges the jurisdiction of the learned Settlement Commissioner, Sanghar, in rejecting the claim of the petitioners that evacuee shop in Tando Adam Municipality, bearing Custodian No, II-A-62/40, corresponding to C. S. No, 92/1, and the shop allegedly bearing Custodian No, 11-A-62/A, corresponding to Survey No, 92-A/6, are one and the same and refusing to cancel the auction of the shop bearing the latter number in favour of the second respondent, and prays that the Orders of the Settlement Commissioner in this behalf be declared to be without legal authority.
2. The circumstances in which this petition has been filed are that prior to partition Plot No, 92, sheet No, 26, in Tando Adam Municipality, was owned by one Dasoomal Maahandas. In 1943, the said Dasoomal acquired an additional area from the Tando Adam Municipality, adjoining his plot. In the same year, he sub-divided his main Plot 92 into 12 sub-plots, which were renumbered as 92/1 to 92/12. He also, on 4th October 1947, sub-divided the additional area which he had acquired from the Municipality in 1943 and the sub-divisions of this additional area were renumbered as 92-A I to 92-A6. It appears that while the sub-divided plots bearing Nos. 92-Al to 92-A6 continued to be shown in the property register of Tando Adam Municipality in the name of Dasoomal Madhandas, sub-plot No, 92-A6, upon sub-division, was shown in the said register in the name of Dewandas Madhandas, who is said to have been the brother of Dasoomal Madhandas. It seems, shop or shops were built on the sub-plots 92/1 and 92-A6, which a join. On partition, both Dasoomal and Dewandas became evacuees and the property in question became evacuee property.
3. At the time of the survey of evacuee property by the Custodian Department, Shop No, 11-A-62/40, which had been constructed on survey No, 92/I, was in the occupation of one Allandin and hence it was so shown in the Enquiry Form. However, when Settlement Scheme No, 1 was enforced, this shop was in the occupation of Abdul Ghafoor and Subhan, who are said to be the sons-in-law of Allandin. The shop, on their application, was transferred to them on their N. C. H. Form. They, however, entered into an agreement of association with Syed Wahid Ahmed Naqvi, the predecessor-in-title of the petitioners, and as they surrendered their entire rights in the shop in his favour, the shop was transferred in the name of said Syed Wahid Ahmed Naqvi. The P. T.
0. And the P. T. D. In respect of the said shop have since been issued.
4. Syed Wahid Ahmed Naqvi obtained from the Tando Adam Municipality on 14th November, 1962 an additional area adjoining the aforesaid shop. Thereafter, there was a new construction on the entire area, namely sub-plot No, 92/1 as well as the additional area acquired by Syed Wahid Ahmed Naqvi from the Municipality, but it is not quite clear whether the new construction was before or after the death of Syed Wahid Ahmed Naqvi in April, 1962. On 13th January, 1965, the petitioners sold off a part of the shop in question to one Razzak for a sum of Rs, 5,000. In the meanwhile, in 1960, shop bearing Custodian No, 11-A-62/A, corresponding to Survey No, 92-A/6, was auctioned by the Settlement Department in favour of the second respondent, IbneHassan. The said Ibne-Hassan thereupon sent a notice dated 17th April, 1961, to Wahid Ahmed Naqvi, who was then still alive, demanding rent for the shop which had been auctioned in favour of Ibne-Hassan, on the ground that this shop was in the physical occupation of Wahid Ahmed Naqvi. It seems that nothing came of this notice as soon thereafter Wahid Ahmed Naqvi died in April, 1962. It is claimed that after the death of Wahid Naqvi, one Faqir Mohammad obtained the possession of the above shop and he transferred it to Razzak to whom, as already stated, the petitioners had sold a part of the shop bearing No, 11-A-62/40. As the said Razzaak was raising construction on this shop also, respondent No, 2 sent notices to him asking him to pay rent and to stop alterations and constructions. Since this notice had no effect on Razzak and the work of construction was not stopped by him respondent No, 2 prosecuted Razzak before the learned Resident Magistrate, Tando Adam, who fined Razzak Rs, 100 for unauthorised construction. Subsequently, respondent No, 2 filed a suit against Razzak. During the pendency of this suit, and possibly as a counter blast to it, the petitioners filed an application before the learned Deputy Settlement Commissioner praying for the cancellation of the auction of shop No, 11-A-62/A in favour of respondent No, 2 on the plea that in fact no shop bearing No, 11-A-62/A exists on the ground and that in fact shop No, 11-A-62/40 has also wrongly been given No, 11-A-62/A and the second respondent has manoeuvred by misrepresentation to obtain shop No, 11-A-62/A auctioned in his favour. The learned Deputy Settlement Commissioner rejected this application on the ground that P. T. Ds. Have been issued in respect of both the shops and consequently the Settlement Authorities have become functus officio.
5. On appeal to the learned Additional Settlement Commissioner, he held that the entry in respect of shop No, 11-A-62/A was not a genuine entry and that the alleged auction of the said shop in favour of respondent No, 2, who was a solitary bidder, was not valid. He accordingly declared the auction of the said shop in favour of the second respondent as invalid.
6. Respondent No, 2 thereupon filed a revision application to the learned Settlement Commissioner who passed the order which is impugned in this constitutional petition. The learned Settlement Commissioner held that the two shops were built on two different survey numbers and had different approaches, the approach to the shop on C. S. No, 92/1 being from the eastern side while` the approach to shop No, 92/A/6, being from the eastern and southern sides. The learned Settlement Commissioner also took note of the fact that as far back as on 17th April, 1961, the second respondent had brought to the notice of Syed Wahid Ahmed Naqvi, the predecessor-in- title of the petitioners, the fact that shop No, 11-A-62/A had been transferred to him by auction, but the latter, and after his death, his successors, took no steps to agitate the matter before the Settlement Authorities. This fact, according to the learned Settlement Commissioner, supported the inference that the two shops were different and it was only subsequently that the petitioners were laying false claims to the shop which had been auctioned in favour of the second respondent. In the view of the learned Settlement Commissioner it was only when the second respondent filed the suit against Razzak in 1965 that the petitioners agitated the matter before the Settlement Authorities, which shows their want of bona fides.
7. I have heard Mr. Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui, the learned counsel for the petitioners, and Mr. Wajihuddin Ahmed, who appears for the legal representatives of respondent No, 2, since the said respondent has died. Mr. Saeeduzzaman's contention is that the learned Settlement Commissioner was completely in error in holding that there were two separate shops and that in fact he should have held on the material before him that there was only one shop which had been allotted to Syed Wahid Ahmed Naqvi and that the auction of the alleged shop, bearing No, 11-A-62/A, was a bogus transaction Mr. Wajihuddin Ahmed, the learned counsel for the second respondent, on the other hand. Strongly contended that there were two separate shops, which had been built on two separate numbers belonging to two different evacuees. He further submitted that there was nothing to show that the auction of the shop bearing No, 11-A-62/A was bogus and since the auction had taken place as far back as 1960, and for several years no protest thereto had been lodged by the petitioners, it should be deemed to be genuine.
8. As Mr. Saeeduzzaman had challenged the very jurisdiction of the learned Settlement Commissioner to pass the impugned order, I asked him to show how the Order suffered from want of jurisdiction. The learned counsel was unable to satisfy me on this point. Admittedly, the learned Settlement Commissioner was competent to decide whether there were two separate shops, as contended by the second respondent, or one shop, which had wrongly been given two Custodian numbers, as contended by the petitioner, and further, whether the auction of the shop bearing Custodian No, ll-A-62/A was a bogus and fictitious transaction. Mr. Saeeduzzaman did not dispute the power of the Settlement Commissioner to determine these issues. In fact, it were the petitioners who had approached the Settlement Authorities to declare that shops bearing Custodian Nos. 11- A-62/40 and 11-A-62/A were one and the same and that the auction of the latter shop in favour of the second respondent was fictitious. In these circumstances, it is not open to the petitioners to contend that the learned Settlement Commissioner had no jurisdiction to determine these issues which they themselves had submitted to the Settlement Authorities for adjudication.
9. It is well settled that where a Tribunal has jurisdiction to decide a matter, it has jurisdiction to decide it wrongly as well as rightly and the mere fact that a Tribunal, which otherwise has jurisdiction, has wrongly decided a matter, is no ground for interference with the same by the High Court in the exercise of its constitutional jurisdiction. (See Mohammad Hussain v. Sikandar (1). In an earlier decision, namely, Badrul Haq v. Election Tribunal (2), Kaikaus, J. Observed :- "The proposition is indisputable that when there is jurisdiction to decide a particular matter then there is jurisdiction to decide it rightly or wrongly and the fact that the decision is incorrect does not render the decision without jurisdiction."
10. No allegation of mala fides have been alleged, far from being proved, against the learned Settlement Commissioner. Even on merits, the learned Settlement Commissioner appears to have been correct in his decision. The City Surveyer. Tando Adam Municipality, who was examined before this Court, has admitted that on the records of the Municipality Survey Nos. 92/1 and 92-A'6 are separate and distinct, though they adjoin. He further stated that in 1948, whereas survey No, 92/1 was shown in the ownership of Dasoomal Madhandas, survey No, 92-A/6 was shown in the ownership of Dewandas. It is quite immaterial whether the two survey numbers originally belonged to Dasoomal if shortly after partition they belonged to different evacuees. The Enquiry Form in respect of shop bearing No, 11-A-62/40 show that it is only regarding construction on plot No, 92/1 belonging to Dasoomal Madhandas. The
(1) PLD 1974 SC 139 (2) PLD 1963 SC 704 ' P. T. D. Issued in favour of the petitioners also is only in respect of the construction on Survey No, 92/1. They thus cannot be entitled to plot No, 92-A/6, or the construction thereon. It appears from the order of the learned Additional Settlement Commissioner, who had himself seen the site sometime in 1966, that there was new construction on plot No, 92-A/6, suggesting that it was perhaps after Abdul Razzak had been sold, by the petitioners, part of the shop bearing No, 11-A- 62/40, that he managed to acquire possession of plot No, 92-A/6, and made construction thereon.
In any case, whenever this subsequent construction was raised, the petitioners can only be entitled to the plot shown in their P. T. D. And the construction raised thereon. Since their P. T. D. Specifically mentions only Plot No, 92/1, they obviously cannot be entitled to the adjoining Plot No, 92-A/6 which seems to have been auctioned in favour of the second respondent in 1960.
11. For the reasons stated by me above, I see no substance in this petition and would accordingly dismiss the same with costs.