' This constitutional petition has arisen in the following circumstances : ' The petitioner No, 1 is a claimant displaced person from non-agreed area. Part of his claim was sent to Mirpurkhas for settlement and according to him ex parte allotment of certain lands was made to him. Subsequently, however, on his representation the said allotment was cancelled and it was ordered that his claim- be settled on some other land in Mirpurkhas. The land which is the subject-matter of the dispute in his case formed part of an area of about 3,000 acres of land owned by one Mst. Parbati Bai, who was declared as an evacuee and the property was also declared as evacuee property. The evacuee owner along-with some others agitated the question of the status of the property before the higher authorities under the Evacuee Laws and finally the Supreme Court rejected their claim and upheld the status of the property as evacuee (vide judgment dated 7th February, 1973 in Civil Appeal No, K-26 of 1967). Before the aforesaid decision the Land Reforms Authorities had treated the land as surrendered land under the provisions of the Land Reforms Regulation, 1972 and transferred the same to respondents Nos. 2 to 33 as sitting harts. However, upon the decision of the Supreme Court holding that the land was evacuee property, the transfer orders in favour of the said respondents were cancelled and the property was made available for permanent settlement of displaced persons. On 4th July, 1973 the first petitioner upon his request was allotted against his claim an area of 228 acres, in Deh 93 Taluka Mirpurkhas, District Tharparkar. Additionally he was allotted another area of 10.24 acres in Deh 98, Mirpurkhas and 14.38 acres in Khander in Mirpurkhas. The said petitioner claims that all the formalities prescribed in law were complied with and he was permanently settled on the aforesaid allotted lands. On 16th August, 1974 the first Petitioner sold the entire area comprising 253.23 acres by registered Sale Deed to petitioners Nos. 2 and 3.
2. On 12th September, 1973 respondents Nos. 2 to 33 filed an application under section 19(1) of Displaced Persons (Land Settlement) Act, 1958 (hereinafter referred to as the. Act) before the Settlement Commissioner, Hyderabad invoking his suo motu jurisdiction and praying, Inter alia, that the allotment of the first petitioner be cancelled and the land Offered for sale to them as sitting harts. The learned Settlement Commissioner (Lands), Sind, Respondent No, 1 herein, after hearing the parties passed the impugned order dated 9th April, 1974 whereby he ordered the cancellation of the allotment of petitioner No, 1 made to him subsequently as described above with the result that the original allotments made to him in the year 1963-64 were revived. The petitioners seek to challenge the legality of the aforesaid order by this petition.
3. I heard Mr. Akhtar Mahmood on behalf of the petitioners and Mr. A. Naseer Khan, Advocate for Respondent No,
1. No one has appeared on behalf of Respondents Nos. 2 to 33.
4. The learned counsel for the petitioners raised a two-fold contention. In the first place he urged that the impugned order was passed in violation of the rule of natural justice as no opportunity of hearing was afforded to the petitioners Nos. 2 and 3, who had by that time acquired title in the disputed land by virtue of purchase through a registered sale-deed. He next submitted that the petition filed by the respondents Nos. 2 to 33 before the Settlement Commissioner was not competent and the order was, therefore, passed without lawful authority, learned counsel for respondent No, 1 did not contest the first contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner and submitted that petitioners Nos. 2 and 3 having acquired a vested interest in the subject-matter of dispute ought to have been made parties before the Settlement Commissioner and given opportunity of hearing. The impugned order has, therefore, to be set aside on this short ground, but in that case the matter would have to be remanded for a fresh decision after giving opportunity of hearing to petitioners Nos. 2 and 3. However, Mr. Akhtar Mahmood learned counsel for the petitioners urged for a decision on the second contention raised by him, the decision of which may obviate the necessity for remand of the case for re-hearing. The only question to be determined is whether in the circumstances of this case the learned Settlement Commissioner could invoke the powers of suo motu revision.
5. Under section 19(2) of the Act as it originally stood a Settlement Commissioner specially empowered in this behalf by the Chief Settlement Commissioner could of his own motion within 9 months, or on application made in this behalf within 60 days, exercise powers of revision in respect of orders passed by Subordinate Officers in the Settlement hierarchy. However, on 30th July, 1973 section 19 was amended by Act LV of 1973, whereby the limitation as to the period for exercise of suo motu powers was removed and the Settlement Commissioner could, therefore, exercise suo motu revisional powers at any time. The Settlement Commissioner could, therefore, on the relevant date when he entertained the petition filed by respondents Nos. 2 to 33 and on the date when he passed the impugned order exercise powers of revision suo motu in respect of any orders passed by the Subordinate Officers without any limitation of time. The argument of Mr. Akhtar Mahmood, however, is that by virtue of section 15(3) of the Act. Petitioner No, 1 was permanently settled under the second allotment on the land in dispute, with the result that the Settlement Authorities had no jurisdiction to cancel the said allotment. There is no force in this contention because it is well settled that permanent rights can flow from an order of allotment under subsection (3) of section 15 only under that if such allotment is found to be in violation of the provisions of the Act, the Settlement Authorities would continue to have jurisdiction to set aside such allotment (see PLD 1971 Lab. 53). The jurisdiction of the Settlement Commissioner to examine the validity of the second allotment was, therefore, intact.
6. It was finally urged by Mr. Akhtar Mahmood that suo motu action could not be taken on the motion of the interested parties. Reliance was placed on Abeda Khatoon v. Ghulam Shabbir and Caltex Oil (Pakistan) Ltd. v. Province of Sind. The Supreme Court case is not relevant to the point under consideration as it relates to the question whether an informer has vested right to the transfer of the property the allotment of which was found to be irregular as a result of information lodged by such informer. The Karachi case, however, supports the contention of the learned counsel fully. In that case section 10(2) of the West Pakistan Urban Immovable Property Tax Act, 1958 fell for interpretation. Section 10(2) of the said Act confers revisional jurisdiction on the competent authority in somewhat similar manner as provided in section 19(2) of the Act, that is to say, an order could be challenged in revision at the instance of an aggrieved party within prescribed time and on his own motion by the authorities at any time. Pointing out the distinction Z.
A. Channa, J. (as he then was) observed as under :- "The object of the said Act, so far as I have been able to gather the same from its provisions, is to provide protection to a party against being vexed by a rival party after the period prescribed for filing of revision application has expired. If an unsuccessful or disgruntled party could be permitted to invoke the suo motu revisional powers of the competent authority, after the expiry of the period of limitation for filing of revision application, the very purpose of prescribing the limitation of period for filing of such applications and the distinction between the exercise of suo motu revisional powers and initiation of proceedings upon revision applications, specially by aggrieved parties, would be obliterated."
' On the aforesaid reasoning the D. B. In the Karachi case struck down an order wherein the relevant authority had exercised suo motu powers of revision on an application by aggrieved party filed beyond the prescribed -limitation period for revision on motion of parties. Similar view was taken by a D. B. Of the Peshawar High Court in Muhammud Aslam v. Federal Land Commissionwhile interpreting the scope of revisional powers exercisable under similar limitations under the Land Reforms Regulation, 1972. In the present case it is not disputed that the application of respondents Nos. 2 to 33 before the Settlement Commissioner was filed beyond the 15 days limitation period prescribed under the amended provisions of section 19(2) of the Act and a preliminary objection was raised that no action can be taken at the instance of the said respondents for exercise of suo motu jurisdiction. However, the learned Settlement Commissioner overruled the objection and, therefore, clearly invoked his suo motu jurisdiction at the instance of the said respondents. In view of the law cited before me in doing so the learned Settlement Commissioner acted illegally and beyond the scope of his authority. The result is that the impugned order was passed without jurisdiction and must, therfore, be held to be ineffective in law.
7. For the foregoing reasons, I allow this petition and set aside the impugned order, with the result that the allotment made in favour of petitioner No, 1 shall stand restored. It may be pointed out that the impugned order dealt with allotments made in similar circumstances in favour of some other parties, but these parties do not seem to be aggrieved by the impugned action as they have not joined the petitioner in this petition. It may, therefore, be clarified that this judgment will not affect that portion of the impugned order which does not relate to the allotments made in favour of the petitioners. In the circumstances of the case, the parties are left to bear their own costs. PLD 1964 SC 793 PLD 1978 Kar. 958 PLD 1976 Pesh. 661 2 3 1 2 3