' ZAFFAR HUSSAIN MIRZA, J.-This appeal by special leave arises out of the judgment of a Division Bench of the Lahore High Court, dated 18-10-1973, dismissing the appellant's Letters Patent Appeal and upholding the judgment of the learned Single Judge of that Court by which the appellant's constitutional petition had been earlier dismissed.
2. The dispute in this case relates to a property bearing No, 1197, Ward No, 8-M, outside Bohar Gate, Multan City, consisting of a ground floor, first floor and a barsati. There was a printing press installed in the ground floor of the said building, known as Victoria Printing Press, which was allotted to Muhammad Abdul Aziz Sharqi (respondent). Umar Din (appellant) who was in possession of the first floor and the barsati over it and was using it for residential purpose, claimed transfer of the said portion in his possession against his NCH Form. The respondent, on the other hand filed a C. S. Form claiming the entire property as a commercial unit. The Deputy Settlement Commissioner accepted the NCH Form of the appellant and transferred in his favour the portion in his possession as an independent house vide order, dated 12-2-1959. It seems at this stage no final order was passed on the C. S. Form of the respondent. On 8-3-1961, the Additional Settlements Commissioner, however, accepted the appeal of the respondent and in his order observed "The first floor forms integral part of the building in which the press in question has been installed.
This conclusion was reached by me after inspecting the premises."
' The operative part of the order reads as follows : "That the result is that entire building including the portion in occupation of Umar Din and the machinery of the press stand transferred to Syed Muhammad Abdul Aziz Sharqi on usual terms."
' The aforesaid order proceeded on the basis of the statutory definition of a 'house' given in section 2 (4) of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation, Act, 1958, which stipulates that a house "does not include any residential building situated within the premises of an industrial concern." The appellant's revision petition challenging the aforesaid order was dismissed by the Settlement Commissioner and therefore, he approached the Chief Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner by means of a second revision which was also disposed of by the Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner, Lahore Division, exercising the powers of Chief Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner, on 3-1-1962. Learned Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner, who passed this order, recorded a finding that the printing press was an old one and had been installed in a room in the ground floor, whereas the upper portion was being used as a residential place by the appellant who was also its allottee since 1948. He disagreed with the view taken by the learned Additional Settlement Commissioner treating the upper portion as an essential and integral part of the factory premises for the reasons which may well be stated in his own words :- "I have examined the plan and I find that this house, so situated on two roads, (the ground floor opening on the circular road and the upper storey opening on a higher back road), is very conveniently divisible horizontally, giving them independent entrance. Since the upper portion is being used as a residential house since partition it should be treated as such and, therefore, I accept the revision petition and transfer the upper two storeys to the petitioner as residential building on his NCH Form.
' The respondent is a man of means and has got a residential house elsewhere. He was a subsequent allottee and that what he had needed was the factory portion of the building. The ground floor is the place where the press was running and is running and he should be content with this alone."
3. Being aggrieved by the aforesaid order, the respondent filed a constitutional petition which was accepted by a learned Single Judge of the erstwhile High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore, declaring the order dated 3-1-1962 to have been passed without lawful authority and of no legal effect. This judgment was upheld by the Letters Patent Bench of the Lahore High Court, Lahore and the appeal of the appellant was dismissed by the impugned judgment in this appeal.
4. Before us the main contention of the learned counsel for the appellant was that although printing presses were to be considered as industrial concerns, in view of the instructions contained in letter No, 9790, dated 19-12-1960, the High Court had fallen into an error in holding that the property in question was not liable to be horizontally divided treating the first floor and the barsati as a house and leaving the ground floor with the respondent as an industrial concern. In this connection, learned counsel invited our attention to para. 6 of the instructions issued by the Chief Settlement Commissioner as per memo No, 2177-F&M-Reh./60, dated 4-5-1960 which reads as under : "Where an industrial concern is located only in one tenement of a building, that portion only may be transferred as an industrial concern and the remaining tenement may be disposed of as independent units in accordance with the provisions of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958 (as amended) and the relevant scheme framed thereunder. The prevailing market value of the unit in which an industrial concern is located is to be determined under the Settlement Scheme No, 1 and that of the machinery etc. Through the technical staff."
' Learned Judges of the Division Bench of the High Court did not give effect to the aforesaid instructions on the ground that same were in conflict with the provisions of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958. In this view of the matter, they thought that notwithstanding the finding of the learned Settlement Commissioner that the property was conveniently divisible horizontally since there were independent access to the two units from different roads, the same could not be treated partly as a house in view of the embargo contained in section 2 (4) of the Act.
5. We have been referred to a decision of this Court reported as K.S. Muhammad Nawaz Khan v.
Mst. Nur Begum and another (1), in which almost in identical circumstances, division of a composite building into two units, one residential and the other industrial was upheld and identical argument as is being advanced in the present case on behalf of the respondent was repelled. It will be of advantage to set out the reasoning adopted by the learned Judges which was as under :- "From the description of the property as appearing in the orders of the Settlement Authorities and the report made by a Member of the Bar, deputed by the Bench to carry out a local inspection, it becomes clear that the industrial concern transferred to the petitioner is located only on the ground floor of the building, and the residential rooms on the first and the second floors are independent of it. Even though there is a common entrance in the verandah for the two units, yet the industrial concern has an additional independent entrance on the main road."
After these observations the learned Judges also approved the instructions issued by the Chief Settlement Commissioner to the effect that if an industrial concern is located only in one tenement of the building then that portion only may be 'transferred as an industrial unit and the other tenements are to be disposed of as independent units in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, and the Scheme framed thereunder. It was expressly held in this case that these instructions are in conformity with the definition contained in section 2 (4) of the Act. We are in respectful agreement with the view already taken by this Court in the said case and may point out that the said instructions are in no way repugnant to the provisions of section 2 (4) of the Act. The bar contained therein enjoins the Settlement authorities from treating as a house "any residential building situated within the premises of an industrial concern". The important word that seems to have escaped the notice of the learned Judges of the High Court is the word "premises" which ordinarily means a house or building with grounds and other subsidiary buildings attached thereto. Viewed in this context of the grammatical meaning a residential building situated within an industrial concern, would clearly come within the embargo. But an industrial concern located in one of the tenements of the building comprising residential units, cannot be said to be an industrial concern as a whole in which there are residential buildings situated. Thus in the facts of this case the residential portion of the first and the second floor could hardly be held to be situated within the premises of an industrial concern. Since there was no dispute before us that the building was divisible and the upper portion has been used as a residential unit, we find no legal infirmity in the order of the Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner dated 3-1-1962. The question whether a property was divisible or not lay with the exclusive jurisdiction of the Settlement authorities and the Court will not ordinarily interfere with the discretion lawfully exercised by such authorities.
6. There is one more aspect of this case which justifies the upholding of the impugned order of the Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner,
(1) 1972 SCM R 413 As pointed out by this Court in Begum Shams-un-Nisa v. Said Akbar Abbasi and another (1). The writ jurisdiction should not be exercised in aid of injustice. After examining the order we are of the view that the same was eminently just and proper order, in consonance with the principle that the Settlement Laws were designed to accommodate as great number of displaced persons as was possible, in a given situation. The appellant was prior allottee whereas the respondent came into the picture much later and could not, therefore, in equity be allowed to exclude the appellant from the property, which was not demonstrated to have been used for the purposes of the industrial concern.
7. For all these reasons we allow the appeal and set aside the order passed by the High Court. In the circumstances of the case there will be no order as to costs.
(1) PLD 1982 SC 413