1. SHAFIUR RAHMAN, J.-Leave to appeal was granted to the plaintiff to examine whether the High Court of Peshawar was right in its judgment dated 29-11-1977 in a civil revision petition to non-suit the appellant on the ground that the civil Courts had no jurisdiction in the matter agitated by the appellant in the civil Courts.
2. ' The plaintiff-appellant after being the successful bidder for Shops Nos, 53/1 and 54/1 situate in Fatima Khel, Tehsil Bannu, and after obtaining its Permanent Transfer Deed, instituted a civil suit claiming that the adjacent Shop No, 52/1 which was, in fact, a chokhatta or thara, was a part of the shop purchased by him in auction and as such transferred to him as a part and parcel of Shops Nos, 53/1 and 54/1. The Municipal Committee, Bannu, was arrayed as a defendant because it claimed this chakhatta or thara bearing Shop No, 52/1 as its own property. Qazi Islamuddin was impleaded as a defendant in the suit on the ground that he was occupying it as a tenant under the Municipal Committee, Bannu. The suit was resisted and contested by the two defendants and on the pleadings of the parties as many as ten issues were framed. All the issues are not, however, being reproduced here as the contest centred round Issues Nos, 1 and 6 which are as follows :- "(1) Is the plaintiff the owner of the suit shop ? 0. P. P.
(6) Whether the civil Court has no jurisdiction to entertain the present suit ?"
3. At first the civil Court decided only the question of jurisdiction, on 28-7-1972 and held that the suit was barred and dismissed it. On appeal the District Judge on 19-11-1973 remanded the suit for trial afresh on all the issues. The learned Civil Judge decided the case on merits, inspected the property and after noting that this shop as well as Shops Nos, 53/1 and 54/1 belonged to one evacuee Faqir Chand and structurally it was one unit and in the custodian survey record prepared in 1952 it was shown to be a part of Shops Nos, 53/1 and 54/1, held that with the transfer of Shops Nos, 53/1 and 54/1 the plaintiff also became the transferee of Shop No, 52/1. Hence the suit was decreed. On appeal the District Judge affirmed this judgment and decree concluding as follows :- "This shop was definitely owned by the evacuee as shown in the list of Shops Exh. D. X. And was part and parcel of Shops Nos, 53/1 and 54/1 as is clear from enquiry from Exh. P. D. 2/1. The P. T. D. Exh. P.
4. W. 2/2 no doubt was issued for purchase of 53/1 and 54/1 but this property included 51/1 in it. Firstly that 52/1 shown to be property of the same evacuee who owned Shops Nos, 53 and 54/1 and secondly that enquiry form also supports the case of the plaintiffs-respondent. Plaintiff-respondent being in possession of the P. T. D. Prepared on the basis of the enquiry form and list of shop prove his title to Shop No, 52/1 and as such his suit was rightly decreed."
5. ' The High Court while seized of the revision petition reversed the findings on Issues Nos, 1 and 6.
6. With regard to the first issue the following finding was recorded :- "The cause of establishing the ownership of the suit property lay very heavily on the plaintiff- respondent which in my humble view he has miserably failed to discharge. There was no evidence worth the name which could show that Shop No, 52/1 was a part and parcel of Shops Nos, 53/1 and 54/1 and according to the settlement record which was produced on behalf of the plaintiff- respondent Shop No, 52/1 has not been transferred to the plaintiff-respondent. Such being the case both the Courts below have misread the evidence and thus wrongly decided Issue No, 1 in favour of the plaintiff-respondent."
7. ' As regards the issue with regard to the jurisdiction of the civil Court the following finding was recorded :- "About the evacuee nature of the shop in Suit, 52/1, there is nothing on the record to say otherwise 1. e. The Municipal Committee has not estatolished its ownership over the suit shop. This being the position, the property is still an evacuee property and according to the evidence analysed above, it has not been yet disposed of. Therefore, ' I am of the firm view that the civil Court had no jurisdiction to sit on judgment upon matters where evacuee property or evacuee interests was involved. Issue No, 6 was, therefore, also wrongly decided by the two Courts below in favour of the plaintiff-respondent."
8. ' On these findings the appeal was accepted and the suit of the plaintiff dismissed. While granting leave to appeal the specific argument raised by the learned counsel for the appellant was enumerated in the following words :- "(1) That the High Court had no jurisdiction to interfere with the concurrent findings recorded by the two Courts below in favour of the petitioner especially when the learned trial Judge had visited the shop in dispute in order to understand the nature of the evidence adduced by the parties before him;
(2) That the learned Judge in the High Court was in error to hold that the civil Courts had no jurisdiction in the matter, for the dispute in regard to Shop No, 52/1 was not of the nature respecting which the jurisdiction of the civil Courts was barred ; and
(3) That the High Court was in error to dismiss the suit of petitioner after it recorded the conclusion that the civil Courts had no jurisdiction in the matter. In that eventuality that the High Court should have done was to return the plaint to the petitioner for presentation to the proper Court."
9. ' The learned counsel for the appellant contended that from the overwhelming evidence on record, particularly the local inspection conducted by the Civil Judge himself, wherein he noted the structural features of the property establishing its unity a finding of fact had been recorded which was borne out from the record. It had been affirmed by the first appellate Court. In civil revision such a finding of fact was not open to reversal and substitution. Besides, it was stated that if the property were in fact an evacuee property then a decision with regard to its character could not be given by the civil Court or for that matter the High Court in civil revision. It had to be referred to the Custodian for decision and, in any case, the plaintiff's claim could not be dismissed as such.
10. ' After hearing the learned counsel for the parties at some length, we find that there has been misconception on the part of the Courts dealing with the question involved in the suit with regard to their own jurisdiction on the matter requiring decision. Neither in the plaint of the plaintiff nor in the written statement of the defendant ever a case was projected that at the time when the suit was instituted the property had an evacuee character or any element of evacuee interest was involved in it. The claim put forward by the plaintiff was one of title simpliciter arising out of the P. T.
11. D. Issued to him under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act. In resisting this title suit the Municipal Committee, Bannu, set up its own title. Therefore, the suit as framed and the suit as contested did not involve any adjudication with regard to the evacuee character or nature of the property.
12. Another misconception with regard to the jurisdiction appeal on the face of the record is that the plaintiff-appellant based bias entire case on the P. T. D. And the interest derived thereunder. The P.
13. T. D. Was the culmination of the proceedings under Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958 with regard to the disposal and transfer of properties forming the pool under the Act. The Courts dealing with the dispute omitted to take note of the fact that though they had full jurisdiction to determine the title derived from the P. T. D. They could not go behind the P. T.
14. D. And interfere with the orders passed by the settlement authorities culminating in the P. T. D. The structural features of the property were irrelevant where the Settlement authority itself had for the purposes of disposal treated the three properties, namely, 52/1, 53/1 and 54/1 separate. The fact that this was done so is borne out from the public notice of auction and the auction list wherein not only these three properties tare differently serially numbered but their individual assessment and occupancy is also entered. It, however, appears from the bid sheet that for the purposes of actual auction and in derogation of the auction list and the notice, Shops Nos, 53/1 and 54/1 were combined and put to auction as one property while Property No, 52/1 stood excluded and remains excluded. This division may be, as contended by the learned counsel for the appellant, without application of mind by the settlement authority, may be erroneous but it had its own sanctity and was not liable to interference by a civil Court. The proper remedy for the appellant if he wanted to question such a division was to move in the settlement hierarchy and get that order set aside and the entire three units treated as one unit for the purpose of disposal. The civil Court had full jurisdiction to decide the claim of the plaintiff with regard to the identity or D the extent of the property transferred to him under the Permanent Transfer Deed held by him. The civil Courts had no jurisdiction however in the process to interpret or construe the Permanent Transfer Deed in a manner to erode, modify or destroy any part of the proceedings, order or decision of the competent settlement authority which consistently with the permanent transfer deed formed the very basis of the Permanent Transfer Deed. That would be outside their jurisdiction under section 25 of the Displaced Persons '(Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act. That would not be an exercise in interpreting or construing the title deed but an exercise of reviewing the very power of disposal of property-a power possessed and exerciseable only by the settlement authorities. There was a manifest jurisdictional error in the approach of the first two Courts inasmuch as they assumed and appropriated to themselves a power to go behind the P. T. D., to make the basis of their the structural features of the property, its description in the record of 1947-1952, in the unity of its ownership losing sight of the jurisdictional impediment that as from 1958 and till the issuance of the Permanent Transfer Deed the settlement authorities had dealt with the property in exercise of their statutory powers, excluding all other powers, and it was, these proceedings which formed the basis of the P. T. D. And controlled it. Such a jurisdictional error or excess was certainly amenable to interference and correction in exercise of revisional powers by High Court. The decision of the Privy Council in Joy Chand v. Kamadaksha on this point as reproduced hereunder appears to be both illustrative and exhaustive :- "There have been a very large number of decisions of Indian High Courts on section 115, to many of which their Lordships have referred. Some of such decisions prompt the observation that High Courts have not always appreciated that although error in a decision of a Subordinate Court does not by itself involve that the Subordinate Court has acted illegally or with material irregularity so as to justify interference in revision under subsection (c) nevertheless, if the erroneous decision results in the Subordinate Court exercising a jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or failing to exercise a jurisdiction' so vested, a case for revision arises under subsection (a) or subsection (b), and subsection (c) can be ignored. The cases of Babu Ram v. Munna Lal, 49 All. 454 ; (AIR 1929 All. 358) and Hari Bhikaji v. Nara Vishvanath, 9 Born. 432, may be mentioned as cases in which a Subordinate Court by its own erroneous decision (erroneous that is in the view of the High Court), in the one case on a point of limitation and in the other on a question of res judkata, invested itself with a jurisdiction which in law it did not possess, and the High Court held, wrongly their Lordships think, that it had no power to interfere in revision to prevent such a result. In the present case their Lordships are of opinion that the High Court, upon the view which it took that the loan was not a commercial loan, had power to interfere in revision under subsection (b) of section 115."
15. ' In the circumstances, for reasons recorded above, which are different from those given by the High Court, the appeal is found to be without merit and dismissed with no order as to costs. AIR 1949 P C 239