' This petition under Article 9 of Provisional Constitution Order, 1981 has been filed to call in question order of the learned Civil Judge, Lodhran dated 22-2-1984 whereby he rejected petitioner's application for permission to produce some documents as additional evidence and the order of the learned Additional District Judge dated 22-5-1984 dismising the petitioners' revision petition.
2. Facts necessary for the disposal of the present petition are that the petitioners filed a suit against respondents No. 3 and 4 for specific performance of the agreement to sell dated 6-12-1973 on the allegation that respondent No. 3 had agreed to sell the land in dispute to the petitioners for a sum of Rs.50,000 which amount the petitioners had paid and the said respondent undertook to complete the sale as soon as proprietary rights were granted to him but after the proprietary rights were conferred on him on 16-7-1978, he did not transfer the land in dispute to the petitioners and instead alienated it by way of exchange to respondent No.
4. Respondent No. 3, in his written statement, admitted the factum of agreement to sell but denied receipt of entire sale consideration of Rs.50,000 and submitted that the petitioners had paid to him only Rs.24,000 and balance amount of Rs.26,000 was never paid to him. Consequently he treated the agreement to sell as cancelled.
3. Necessary issues arising from the pleadings of the parties were framed and the parties led their evidence. Petitioners concluded and closed their evidence on 9-1-1984 whereafter case was fixed for arguments on 22-2-1984 on which date petitioners moved an application (Annexure 'G') to seek permission to produce the agreement to sell by way of additional evidence. This application, it may be pertinently pointed out, made no mention of the alleged receipt for Rs.50,000 although in the impugned order, it is stated that the petitioners sought permission to produce the agreement to sell as also the receipt aforesaid. Be that as it may, the learned trial Court by its order dated 22-2- 1984 rejected the petitioners' application on the ground that the documents now sought to be produced formed the basis of their suit and were also in their possession but they failed to produce them during the course of their evidence. It was, therefore, held by the learned Civil Judge that the petitioners could not be allowed to produce these documents at the stage of the arguments.
Learned Civil Judge took note of the fact that the issues were framed on 25-6-1979 and the petitioners fully knew as to which documents they were to produce to prove their case. In fact, the documents in question constituted the basis of their claim and yet they closed their evidence on 9- 1-1984 without daring to produce, these basic documents. This according to the learned Civil Judge, was not a case of mere inadvertence but of sheer negligence.
4. Feeling aggrieved with the aforementioned order of the Civil Judge, petitioners filed a revision petition which, too, has been dismissed by the learned Additional District Judge, Multan vide his order dated 22-5-1984 holding that the provisions of Order XVII, rule 2, C.P.C. as amended embody the rule of equity and are intended to help the vigilant and not the indolent, and that in the circumstances of this case, petitioner's prayer for producing additional evidence was rightly refused on account of their negligence. It was further held by the learned Additional District Judge that the grant or refusal to grant the permission for additional evidence was within the discretionary domain of the trial Court and exercise of discretion in the instant case was neither arbitrary nor fanciful. Taking this view of the matter, learned Additional District Judge declined to interfere, in the exercise of his revisional jurisdiction, with the order of the learned trial Court.
5. It is contended by the learned counsel that the agreement to sell being an admitted document, permission to produce it as additional evidence was wrongfully refused by the learned trial Court as its production would not have caused any prejudice to the respondents. Similarly, receipt executed by respondent No. 3 at the time of receiving sale price of Rs.50,000 (though denied by respondent No.3) was also an important document, non-production of which would adversely affect the petitioners case. Submission of the learned counsel is that these documents could not be produced in evidence at the relevant time on account of inadvertance and the power under Order XVIII, rule 2, C.P.C. as amended by the High Court was designed to grant relief in such cases and the refusal of the trial Court to grant permission to the petitioners to adduce the additional evidence amounted to refusal/ failure to exercise jurisdiction vested in its which warranted interference by the learned Additional District Judge in his revisional jurisdiction. Argument of the learned counsel is misconceived. Petitioners' contentio that non-production of the documents at the relevant time was inadverten has been repelled by the two Courts and it has been held by both th Courts that the documents sought to be produced by the petitioner as additional evidence were in their possession and constituted the bast of their claim and yet they closed their evidence without producing them which was an act of negligence. No rule of law or authority has been cited before me in support of the proposition that the party failing through its own negligence to produce some witnesses or documents during the course of its evidence can seek to produce them by way of additional evidence by invoking inherent jurisdiction of the Court under Explanation-1 (reproduced hereunder) added by Lahore High Court to Order XVIII, rule 2, C.P.C.
"Nothing in this rule shall affect the jurisdiction of the Court, of its own accord or on the application of any party for reasons to be recorded in writing, to direct any party to examine any witness at any stage".
'On the contrary, it was held in Lahore Municipal Corporation v. S.Abdul Rahim and 3 others PLD 1973 Lah . 391 that the provisio aforementioned "is more of a rule of equity and as equity does no help the indolent, it cannot be successfully argued that because ther is no bar to exercise that power the Court below has in any manne failed to exercise jurisdiction so vested in it". Thus merely, becaus the learned trial Court did not allow the petitioners to produce addition evidence does not mean that it failed to exercise jurisdiction vested in it. On the other hand, it is quite clear that the learned trial Cour duly considered the petitioners' application and rejected it after takin note all the facts and circumstances of the case and for reasons recorded in its order. That being so, there was no failure or refusal by th learned trial Court to exercise its jurisdiction.
6. Law is fairly well-settled that powers under section 115, C.P.C. are primarily meant for correcting errors made by subordinate Court in exercise of their jurisdiction. It is not denied that the learned_ tria Court had the jurisdiction to grant or to refuse the permission fo producing additional evidence.
If it has declined the permission on account of the negligence of the petitioner, it cannot be said either t have refused to exercise the jurisdiction vested in it or to have committed any jurisdictional error. Distinction between an error of jurisdiction and error within jurisdiction is quite well known. In Muhammad Hussain Munir v.Sikandar PLD 1974 SC 139 it was held that "it is we settled that where a Court or a Tribunal has jurisdiction and it determines that question, it cannot be said that it acted illegally or with material irregularity merely because it came to an erroneous decision on a question of fact or even of law". It can hardly be denied that the learned trial Court as also the learned Additional District Judge were possessed of the jurisdiction to hear and decide the matter agitated before them. That being so, orders passed by them do not suffer from any illegality much less any jurisdictional error to justify invocation of jurisdiction.
7. There is yet another aspect of the matter which need be noticed. Power to allow additional evidence was undeniably within the discretion of the trial Court which discretion, as held by the Additional District Judge was properly exercised. That being so, interference in revisional jurisdiction was not called for. It is an established proposition that discretionary orders of subordinate Courts cannot be interfered with unless found to be fanciful or arbitrary. Reference in this behalf may be made to Muhammad Umar Beg v.Sultan Mahmood Khan PLD 1970 SC 139.
8. Thus, viewed from whichever angle, impugned order of the learned trial Court did not warrant interference in revisional jurisdiction under section 115, C.P.C. Learned Additional District Judge, therefore, rightly declined to interfere in exercise of his revisional powers.
9. Looked at from yet another angle, present writ petition directed against the order of the learned Additional District Judge passed in exercise of his revisional jurisdiction is not even maintainable.
Order passed in revision by District Judge/Additional District Judge under section 115, C.P.0 is clothed with finality and no second revision is available in the High Court. That being so, to entertain writ petition against revisional orders of the Additional District Judge tantamounts to deflecting intention of the Legislature and circumventing the law. If an order passed by a Court of competent jurisdiction cannot be directly challenged in the High Court in its revisional jurisdiction, the same cannot be permitted to be indirectly assailed in Constitutional jurisdiction of this Court except under exceptional circumstances. In Abdul Rahman Bajwa v. Sultan and 9 others PLD 1981 SC 522, Supreme Court was pleased to observe that while considering the question of jurisdiction of High Court under Article 199, it has repeatedly held that if a Court or a Tribunal set up under the ordinary law has the jurisdiction to decide a particular matter then there is jurisdiction to decide it rightly or wrongly and the fact that the decision is incorrect, or is not one at which the High Court would nave arrived does not render the decision without jurisdiction.
' In the precedent case it was held that after enactment of section 439-A, Cr.P. C. (which provision is in pail materia with the provisions of section 115, C.P.C, jurisdiction of the High Court has been curtailed in order to relieye High Court of burden of deciding thousands of revisions against the orders of hundreds of Magistrate, "but it is noticed with some dismay that persons dissatisfied with the judgments of the final Courts under the normal laws have taken to challenging them through writ petition under Article 199 of the Constitution thereby circumventing the law and defeating obvious intention of the Legislature".
' Upshot of the above discussion is that this writ petition has no merit and the same is dismissed in limine.