The petitioner, Muhammad Rashid Khan and another, filed a suit against the respondents, Punjab Province and another, in the Court of Senior Civil Judge, Mianwali, but the suit was dismissed in default. They then made an application for restoration of the suit. The application was contested by the respondents whereupon the following issues were framed by the learned Senior Civil Judge : (11 Whether the application is within time ? O. P. P.
(2) Whether there are sufficient grounds for restoration of the suit? O. P. P.
The application came up before the learned Senior Civil Judge on 29th May, 1979 for recording of the parties `evidence but the petitioners' evidence was not there and, therefore, at their request, the case was adjourned to 13th September 1979, for their evidence. On 13th September, 1979, too their witnesses were not present and they requested for another adjournment. Accordingly, the case was adjourned to 19th November, 1979, for evidence of the petitioners but on that date also their witnesses were not in attendance. The application was, therefore, dismissed for their failure to prove the issues drawn up by the learned Senior Civil Judge. Feeling aggrieved by his order, the petitioners went in appeal before an Additional District Judge but that too had met the same fate.
They have, therefore, come up in revision to this Court.
2. Learned counsel for the petitioners contended that the petitioners were present before the learned trial Court on 19th November, 1979, but their attendance was not noted nor they were allowed to make statements as their own witnesses. There is no such assertion in the petition before me or in the affidavit appended thereto. The contention raised by the learned counsel is, therefore, not accepted for being without substance.
3. It was also urged by the learned counsel that while passing the impugned order the learned Senior Civil Judge had made use of the provisions of Order XVII, rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure but the said provisions were not available to him for making the said order. The argument proceed that in view of the word "suit" appearing in rule 3 the said rule could b pressed into service for deciding a suit and not an application like the on made by the petitioners for restoration of their suit. It is true that in rule 3. The word "suit" has been used but according to section 141 of the Code of-- Civil Procedure the provisions of the said Code in regard to suits are to be followed, as far as it can be made applicable, in all proceedings in any Court of civil jurisdiction . Thus, the provisions of rule 3 were available to the learned trial Court for dismissing the petitioners' application due to their repeated omissions to produce evidence in support of that application. In this view of the matter, there is no merit iN the argument of the learned counsel that the petitioners' application could not be dismissed by invoking the provisions of rule 3.
4. Lastly, it was submitted by the learned counsel that the learned trial Court had erred in dismissing the application immediately on coming to know that the petitioners' witnesses were not present on the date fixed for their evidence, namely, the 19th November, 1979. According to him, the Court ought to have given reasonable, time to the petitioners to produce their witnesses if they are not present on the said date He placed reliance on Maulvi Abdul Azlz Khan v. Mst. Shah Jahan Begum and 2 others (PLD 1971 SC 434) to support his plea.
5. The case of Maulvi Abdul Ailz Khan is distinguishable on facts. What happened in that case was that a suit was not decided on the same date on which the evidence of one of the defendants was closed under Order XVII, rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure but was adjourned for arguments, etc. The contention raised before the Supreme Court was that in view of the word "forthwith" used in rule 3, the suit should have been decided on the date when the evidence of the said defendant was closed but as that was not done, the order under the said rule was illegal. This plea did not find favour with the learned Judges of the Supreme Court who were pleased to observe that the reasonable meaning of the word "forthwith" was that the Court should proceed to decide the suit within a reasonable time under the circumstances of the case. In the case in hated there was no delay on the part of the learned trial Court in taking the petitioners to task for not producing their evidence. Their application had been adjourned to 19th November, 1979, at their request; for their evidence ,but as they had not been able to produce evidence on the said date, their' application was dismissed on that very day. The learned trial Court was not to blame for not allowing any more time to the petitioners for adducing evidence because earlier they had obtained two adjournments for the purpose. The case of Maulvl Abdul Aziz Khan is therefore, of no help to the petitioners who had not only failed to prosecute their suit but bad also exhibited gross negligence in the matter of pursuing their application for restoration of their suit.
6. There is no merit in this revision petition. It is dismissed in limine.