FAZAL ELAHI KHAN, J.--Bakhtawar Shah son of Sher Khan (tenant) has assailed in this writ petition the judgments and orders of respondents 3 to 6, whereby the respondent's application for enhancement and reassessm ent of the lease amount was accepted and he was ordered to make payment of the lease amount for the land held by him under the respondents at the rate of Rs.450 per Jarib per annum with effect from Kharif, 1982.
2. Facts of the case briefly stated are that respondents 1 and 2 instituted suit in the Court of Revenue EA.C. Charsadda (respondent-6) for enhancement of the lease amount from Rs.200 to Rs.800 per jarib per annum which was the rate prevailing in the area during the period. It was alleged by the petitioner that the tenant was holding the land in suit under the respondent at the rate of Rs.200 per jarib per annum, since long which measures 103 kanals 11 marlas detailed in the plaint situated in the area of village Hisara Barani Payan. As the prices of all sorts of commodities increased the lessee was approached to enter into a fresh agreement with the landlord i.e. To increase the lease amount to Rs.800 per jarib per annum which was the prevailing rate of lease in the area but he refused hence the present suit. The defendant in his written statement resisted the plaintiff's suit on several legal and factual pleas. It was stated that previously he was holding the land at the rate of Rs.120 per jarib per annum but later on in the year 1977-78 it was enhanced to Rs.200 with the condition that there would be no further increase in the lease money. Objection was also raised to the jurisdiction of the Court. The learned Revenue EA.C. After recording evidence of the parties which they wished to produce held that the defendant failed to prove that there was any agreement between the parties that the lease amount would not be enhanced in future. The suit was held to be in proper form and the plaintiff was held to have got a cause of action and it was further held that the Court had jurisdiction in the matter. It was further held that the parties did not mutually agree to the rate of lease and that Rs.200 per jarib per annum was too nominal rent for the land. Relying on a judgment given in Humayun v. Abdul Akbar Khan in which Rs.500 was fixed as lease amount per year per jarib in respect of land situated in the same village the defendant was asked to pay lease money at the rate of Rs.450 per jarib per year with effect from Kharif, 1982 by his judgment and order dated 20-9-1984. It may be pointed out that the tenant had also made an application for deposit of rent for the period Kharif 1982 to Rabi 1983 for land measuring 96 kanals 10 marlas at the rate of Rs.200 per jarib per year. This application was resisted by the landlords on the ground that there had been a verbal agreement between the parties fixing Rs.800 as the lease amount per jarib per annum. While decreeing the plaintiffs suit the learned trial Court also disposed of the application of the tenant directing him to deposit the arrears of rent at the rate of Rs.450 per jarib per annum. That order was challenged in Appeal No.214/8 while that against the decree passed in favour of the landlords in Appeal No.213/8. The landlords also filed cross-objections to the tenant's appeal in which they claimed enhancement from Rs.450 to Rs.800.
These appeals and the cross-objections were disposed of by the learned Collector vide order dated 28-3-1985. The judgments and decrees of the learned trial Court were modified to the extent that the plaintiffs were held entitled to the lease money at the enhanced rate from Rabi, 1984 and the tenant was directed to deposit the arrears of rent for Kharif 1982 and Rabi 1983 at the rate of Rs.200 per jarib per year. Still dissatisfied with the judgments and orders of the Courts below the tenant challenged the same in two separats revision petitions before the Additional Commissioner.
Both these revision petitions were dismissed on 6-10-1985 maintaining the judgments and orders of the learned Collector. His further revision petition was dismissed by the Board of Revenue as incompetent under the law.
3. The judgments and orders of respondents 3 to 6 are assailed in this writ petition mainly on the following grounds:-
(i) That the impugned order of respondent 3 to the effect that it lacks the jurisdiction, in view of the Supreme Court judgment is based on misinterpretation of the said judgment. Respondent-3 had the jurisdiction under M.L.R. 115 with clause (vii) of Paragraph 25 to hear the revision petition;
(ii) that the conditions on which the rent can be enhanced, if any, under the Act of 1950 are not available in the present case.
We have heard the learned counsel for the parties at great length and have perused the record and find no force in both these contentions. Admittedly the petitioner is a lessee and was holding the land at the rate of Rs.200 per jarib per annum before the dispute arose between the parties. A lessee is tenant as defined under clause (v) of section 2 and is governed by the provisions of N.- W.F.P. Tenancy Act. However, a lessee has been excluded from the purview of a tenant as defined in the Land Reforms Regulation 1972 by the Land Reforms N.-W.F.P. (Amendment) Ordinance 1981 (Ordinance XI of 1981) hence the judgment of the Supreme Court on which reliance has been placed by the learned counsel for the petitioner, in which the power of second revision was found to exist in the Board of Revenue in cases coming under the Land Reforms Regulation, is not attracted to the present case. Reliance can be placed on a Division Bench judgment of this Court in Samar Khan and 6 others v. Safdar and 9 others PLD 1989 Pesh. 102.
4. For the question whether the Revenue Court has the jurisdiction to enhance the lease amount we have been unable to find any specific provision in the N.W.F.P. Tenancy Act, as compared to that of the Punjab Tenancy Act, there are, however, reasons for it. Generally the provisions for enhancement of rent, in the Punjab Tenancy Act, refer either to the occupancy tenancy or to tenancy in which the tenant is protected from ejectment or that they are not to be ejected otherwise on the grounds provided under the law. Occupancy tenancy was terminated by Sections 3, 4, 4-A of the N.W.F.P. Tenancy Act, 1950. A tenant-at --will can be ejected under Section 24 of the N.W.F.P. Tenancy Act either by instituting a suit in the Revenue Court or through an application for ejectment under Section 26 read with section 28 for which the landlord is not required to prove the grounds for ejectment when the period of lease for holding the land fixed by the parties expires, Two options are open to a landlord as well as to the tenant. The landlord has either to ask for the ejectment of the tenant or he would enter into a fresh agreement of tenancy with the person holding the land. Similarly the tenant on expiry of the period of tenancy is either to relinquish possession of the land in favour of his landlord or is to continue and hold the land after entering into a fresh agreement of tenancy with his landlord. If the tenantrefuses to surrender possession of the land to his landlord and fails to enter into a fresh agreement of tenancy it gives rise to a genuine dispute between the parties which could be resolved by the Revenue Court under clause (f), Second Group, subsection (3) of section 49 of the Act which reads as follows:-- Section 49 (31)_ The following suits shall be instituted in and heard and determined by Revenue Courts, and no other Courts shall take cognizance of any such dispute or matter with respect to which any suit might be instituted ----- Second Group
(f) any other suit between landlord and tenant arising out of the lease or conditions on which a tenancy is held. The aforementioned clause is a sort of a residuary provision which covers all disputes including that of present nature which would be determined by the Revenue Court. Such question was earlier raised before the Supreme Court of Pakistan in Akram v. Abdullah Khan CA.
No.104 and 105 of 1984 their Lordships reversing the finding of the High Court, that the petitioner in the case had come to the High Court with unclean hands observed as follows:- "The finding that the appellants moved the High Court in its constitutional jurisdiction with unclean hands with respect, it is pointed out, in view of the admitted position before us that since 1976 the lease money was being paid, would not be correct. It was a case where the respondents were seeking the enhancement of the lease money. Till final adjudication of the question of increase the appellants were supposed to pay the lease money which was sought to be increased i.e. Rs.80 per annum per jarib. In this context, therefore, who are unable to uphold the finding regarding unclean hands; as the appellants continued to pay (since 1976) the lease money at the rate of Rs.80. It would have been different if they would not have paid the same and would have sought relief from the High Court regarding increase demanded by the respondents upto Rs.500 per annum per jarib, which stood accepted on the revenue side:" (The underlining is ours). With those observations their Lordships set aside the judgment of the High Court and remanded the case as the question of jurisdiction was not dealt with adequately. After the remand of the case the matter ended in a compromise in which the tenant accepted the enhanced rent and the writ petition was disposed of accordingly. In the instant case, as we have already observed, the learned EA.C. Revenue had vide his judgment and order dated 20-9-1984 held the landlord entitled to the lease money at the enhanced rate for the period Kharif 1982 and Rabi, 1983 but the learned Appellate Court ordered the enhancement effective from Rabi, 1984, the date of final adjudication. Such being the case, we are of the view that the determination of the dispute with regard to the rate of lease was beneficial to both the parties otherwise if the petitioner was not .Willing to accept the lease at the prevailing rate there was nothing to debar him from relinquishing his tenancy as required under Section 20 of the N.-W.F.P. Tenancy Act. For the reasons stated above we find no force, in both the grounds raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner. As far as the judgment, decision and orders of respondents 3 to 6 on merits are concerned, we are conscious of our constitutional jurisdiction in which the questions of fact determined by the forums of competent jurisdiction are not open to any exception. Neither any misreading nor non-reading of evidence was pointed out. Hence we would dismiss this writ petition with no order as to costs.