NASIM HASAN SHAH, J.--This order will dispose of Civil Petition No. 469 of 1984 and Civil Petition No. 383 of 1984 since the petitioners in both these cases are persons who claim that they are entitled to the land surrendered by its original owner, under the Land Reforms Regulation and are resisting his efforts to make any change in the choice of the excess land he would like to surrender.
2. The contesting respondents are the heirs of the original owner (now deceased) whose holding was once determined under M.L.R. 64 but had to be re-determined because of acquisition of more area by him on account of a subsequent inheritance. The orders about fresh surrender and retention of area desired by him out of his estate were passed in 1966 but a number of appeals and revisions including also a writ petition in the High Court by the declarant were filed in connection with the areas he really desired to retain and those which he finally wished to surrender. Suffice it to say that once the matter was remanded to the Chief Land Commissioner on the ground that the earlier Chief Land Commissioner, who dealt with the matter, was not empowered to do so. Consequently, the matter came up before Mr. Zahur Azar, Chief Land Commissioner, who disposed of the matter by a detailed order dated 20-9-1977. This order was challenged in revision before the Federal Land Commission and a learned Senior Member of the Commission, by his order dated 24-7-1978 remanded the case again to the Chief Land Commissioner for fresh decision with certain directions. Consequently, the matter was, thereafter taken up by Syed Naseer Ahmad, Additional Chief Land Commissioner, Punjab, who in an elaborate and exhaustive order, after recounting the history of the case, went on to deal with all the points raised in the order of remand passed by the Federal Land Commission and in his aforesaid order gave his finding with respect to each issue referred to him. The upshot was that he allowed the declarants to make interchanges as requested by them vide order dated 30-12-1979.
3. The propriety of this order was challenged before the Federal Land Commission through a revision petition by some tenants namely Pehlwan son of Sher Muhammad etc. But without any success and this petition was dismissed by the Senior Member of the Federal Land Commission by his order dated 10-6-1980. Thereafter, Pehlwan etc. Moved the High Court through a writ Petition (W.P. No. 10642 of 1980). The petitioners in C.P. No. 383 of 1984 are co-tenants of Pehlwan etc. According to them they were not heard before a decision adverse to their interests was taken by the Additional Chief Land Commissioner, hence they could not move the Federal Land Commission.
But as soon as they became aware of these adverse orders they approached the High Court with a writ petition (W.P. No. 166 of 1981) for quashment of the orders of the Additional Chief Land Commissioner dated 30-12-1979 and of the Federal Land Commission dated 10-6-1980. It was submitted that as their interests and the interest of the petitioners in Writ Petition No. 10642 of 1980 (Pehlwan etc.) was identical and that the said writ petition (W-P. No. 10642 of 1980) stood admitted to regular hearing their writ petition may also be admitted and considered alongwith the aforesaid writ petition of Pehlwan etc. Viz. W.P. 106 of 1980.
4. Coming to the case of the petitioners in Civil Petition No. 469 of 1984 (Allah Ditta etc.) it transpires that they did not file any revision petition against the order of the Additional Chief Land Commissioner dated 30-12-1979 before the Federal Land Commission but decided to challenge the said order of -the Additional Chief Land commissioner directly before the High Court by a writ petition (namely, W.P. No. 135 of 1981). The said writ petition was dismissed by the High Court on the short ground that the petitioners had not exhausted the remedy of revision available to them by approaching the Federal Land Commission and their failure to do so disentitled them to invoke the extraordinary writ jurisdiction of the High Court.
5. The High Court heard all the three writ petitions namely, W.P. No. 10642 of 1980, W.P. No. 135 of 1981and W. P. No. 166 of 1981 together on 12-3-1984.
6. So far as Writ Petition No. 10642 of 1980 filed by Pehlwan etc. Is concerned the same was disposed of in terms of a compromise made by the parties before the High Court. But the writ petition filed by Hidayat etc. (W.P. No. 166 of 1981) petitioners in Civil Petition No. 383 of 1984 as also the writ petition filed by Allah Ditta etc. (W.P. No. 135 of 1981) which were pressed on merits, were, however, dismissed.
7. The petitioners in Writ Petitions Nos. 135 of 1981 and 166 of 1981 have, therefore, challenged the orders of dismissal of their writ petitions by these petitions for leave to appeal.
8. The only question requiring consideration in the petition filed by Allah Ditta etc. (C.P. No. 469 of 1984) is whether the High Court was justified in dismissing Writ Petition No. 135 of 1981, which was filed to challenge the order of the Additional Chief Land Commissioner to the High Court direct on the short ground that the petitioners had not exhausted the remedy of revision available to them before approaching the High Court; in other words whether their failure to exercise the revisional jurisdiction of the Federal Land Commission constituted a sufficient ground for dismissing their writ petition?
9. Mian Nusratullah, learned counsel for the petitioners criticised the view taken by the High Court that the failure by the petitioners to invoke the remedy of revision disentitled them to approach the High Court in exercise of its extraordinary writ jurisdiction and cited certain judgments of the High Court and also a judgment of this Court (in the case of Mst. Hussain Bibi v. Haji Muhammad Din and others 1976 SCMR 395 in support of his contention. In the last mentioned judgment it was observed:- "It is well settled that failure to have recourse to a revisional remedy does not necessarily operate as a bar to the invocation of writ jurisdiction and no exception could, therefore, be taken to the entertainment of (a petition in exercise of the) writ jurisdiction by the High Court."
10. In our view, this judgment is not of any great help to the case of the petitioners. In the precedent case, it has not been laid down that a writ petition cannot be dismissed on the ground that the petitioners did not have recourse to a revisional remedy available to them. All that this ruling lays down is that the High Court is not debarred from entertaining a writ petition despite the failure of the petitioners to have recourse to another remedy available to them. This implies that the High Court can entertain a writ petition though a remedy is still available to the petitioners but it has not been laid down that the High Court is bound to entertain a writ petition in every such case. On the other than the writ jurisdiction is to be exercised only if the High Court is satisfied that "no other adequate remedy" provided by law is available to the petitioner. See Nagina Dal Factory v. The Income-tax Officer and another 1968 SCMR 1035 and Raja Habib Ahmad Khan v . The Income-tax Officer, Hazara Circle, Abbottabad 1972 SCMR 631. Accordingly, we are of the opinion that if in any case the High Court considers that a writ petition should not be entertained on account of the failure of an aggrieved party to avail of another adequate remedy such a decision is not only entirely legitimate but is indeed in furtherance of the intendment of Article 199 of the Constitution.
In fact in the present case, since the case was remanded by the Federal Land Commission to the Chief Land Commissioner for decision afresh in the light of the direction given by it, it was all the more appropriate that a revision petition should have been filed before the said authority to enable it to verify if its directions had indeed been carried out.
11. We, therefore, feel that the order made by the High Court in this case was not only in accordance with law but also a perfectly proper and appropriate order in the circumstances of this case.
12. So far as the petition filed by Hidayat etc. (Civil Petition No. 383 of 1984? Is concerned the petitioners therein were sailing alongwith Pehlwan etc. (the petitioners in Writ Petition No. 10642 of 1980) ..And after the disposal of their writ petition and the dismissal of the writ petition filed by Allah Ditta etc. (W.P. No. 135 of 1981), no exception can be taken to the order made in the petitioner's writ petition (W. P . No. 166 of 1981). The result is that both these petitioners fail and are dismissed hereby.