1. HAMOODUR RAHMAN, C. J-The dispute in this case relates to an evacuee residential house situated on Ratan Chand Road, Lahore which, it is now accepted, is numbered as 27-S-10.
2. The petitioner claims that he had filed a C. I-I. Form for the transfer of this property as an allottee in possession but he did not pursue the matter as he was informed that the premises were likely to be treated as a big mansion in which case he would not be entitled to its transfer. However, when the property was transferred to the respondent No. 1 as a residential house, he applied to be impleaded as a party in a revision which had been filed by another occupant named Inayatullah.
3. He also filed a separate appeal but when that was dismissed by the Additional Settlement Commissioner filed an independent revision petition. The Settlement Commissioner accepted the revision and remanded the case back to the Additional Settlement Commissioner directing that a proper enquiry be made as to the identity of the property for which the petitioner had applied and the case disposed of on merits.
4. The Additional Settlement Commissioner called for a report from the Deputy Settlement Commissioner who reported that properties bearing Nos. S-11-25-S-3 and S-54-R-18 were one and the same and that the petitioner was an allottee in respect of a portion thereof since 1947. .
5. After considering this report the Additional Settlement Commissioner in his turn remanded the case to the Deputy Settlement Commissioner 11 for making enquiry on three points, namely; (i) whether the petitioner was in possession of the house transferred to the respondent No. 1 before the 20th December 1958 ; (ii) whether the petitioner had submitted any form for the transfer of the house in dispute and (i.e) whether the petitioner had any right to the transfer thereof.
6. The petitioner being aggrieved by this order again went up in revision to the Settlement and Claims Commissioner. Before the latter both parties agreed that the material on the record was sufficient to decide the case on merits and that the Settlement and Claims Commissioner should. Do so. He, therefore, dealt with the case on merits and held (i) that the petitioner's possession since before the 20th December 1958, was not proved, (ii) that the photo state copy of the original allotment order was not reliable and (i.e) that the C. H. Form alleged to have been filed by him is not on the file nor has its original receipt been produced. On these findings the revision was dismissed as the claim of the petitioner was not considered to be a bona fide one.
7. The petitioner challenged this order by a petition under Article 98 of the late Constitution. A learned Single Judge of the High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore Seat, came to the conclusion that since these findings were findings of fact based or a consideration of the evidence and they were in no way perverse the High Court had no jurisdiction to interfere with the same it its writ jurisdiction.
8. Before the Letters Patent Bench it was in addition sought to be urged that the Settlement Commissioner had no jurisdiction in revision to decide the case on merits but the Division Bench repelled this contention on the ground that since the petitioner had himself consented to the matter being dealt with on merits by the Settlement Commissioner himself instead of being remanded to the Additional Settlement Commissioner it was not open to him now to resile from that position. The Letters Patent Appeal was, accordingly, dismissed in limine.
9. The petitioner now seeks special leave to appeal to this Court and the contentions advanced on his behalf are firstly that the Settlement Commissioner had come to his findings without -considering all the materials on the record and secondly, that since the revision was only on a point of law relating to the validity of the remand by the Additional Settlement Commissioner, the learned Settlement Commissioner had no jurisdiction to go into the whole case on merits.
10. None of these contentions has any substance. The petitioner himself had invoked the Settlement Commissioner to decide the case on merits. The Settlement Commissioner had in any event, under subsection (3) of section 20 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act the jurisdiction to decide the case on merits even in revision. The High Court was, there--fore, quite right in observing that the powers of the Settlement Commissioner in a revision under the said Act are of a were nature and the whole case is open to decision before him. We see no reason to disagree with the view taken by the High Court on this question.
11. The High Court was also right in holding that a finding of fact which was arrived at upon a consideration of the evidence on which such a finding could be reasonably based cannot be B interfered with in the writ jurisdiction.
12. This petition is without any substance and is, accordingly, dismissed.