1. ANWARUL HAQ, J.-This order will dispose of Civil Petitions bearing Nos. 259, 295 and 296 of 1972 which raise common questions of law and fact.
2. The petitioner in all these cases is the Capital Development Authority, Islamabad, for whose benefit certain lands were acquired from private land-owners cited as respondents in these cases. The acquisition proceedings were taken by the Deputy Commissioner, Capital Development Authority; and compensation was assessed at certain rates in each case according to the quality of the land acquired. The land-owners filed appeals against the assessment of compensation which were accepted by the Commissioner appointed under the Capital Development Authority Ordinance, 1960, and the amount of compensation was enhanced. The Capital Development Authority did not file any appeal against the orders of the Deputy Commissioner but instead filed review petitions in each case praying for a reduction in the compensation awarded for the different kinds of land which were dismissed by this Officer primarily for the reason that the appeals of the land-owners had already been filed before and accepted by the higher authority, namely, the Commissioner, C.
3. D. A. The Authority then filed review petitions before the Commissioner which were also dismissed.
4. Aggrieved by the dismissal of its review petitions and the acceptance of the appeals filed by the land-owners, the Capital Development Authority moved Writ Petitions Nos. 240, 241 and 462 of 1972 in the Lahore High Court, which have been dismissed by two learned Judges of the High Court sitting in Single Benches. In Writ Petitions Nos. 240 and 241 of 1972, it has been observed that compensation of the land has been assessed in accordance with law by a competent authority taking into consideration the various circumstances having a bearing on the price of the land acquired. In the order disposing of Writ Petition No. 462 of 1972, the learned Judge has observed that the Capital Development Authority did not challenge the award of the Deputy Commissioner by way of appeal and it merely acted on the chance that the land-owners might prefer appeals during the course of which the Capital Development Authority might demand a reduction in the compensation awarded by the Deputy Commissioner. The High Court has observed that in these circumstances the case did not appear to be a fit one for interference in the exercise of the extraordinary jurisdiction conferred on the High Court by the Constitution.
5. It is submitted by Mr. Farrukh Ameen, the learned counsel appearing for the Capital Development Authority, that the High Court was in error in thinking that the compensation had been properly assessed by the Deputy Commissioner, and that the failure of the Authority to file appeals could in any manner operate to disentitle it from relief by way of review. It is submitted that it was open to the authority to choose its remedy under the law and that in fact proceedings in review under the relevant Ordinance were of a wirier scope than in appeal.
6. The relevant section in the Capital Development Authority Ordinance, dealing with the subject of the appeal and review, is section 36. It lays down that "The Authority or any person aggrieved by an award or final order of the Deputy Commissioner may within 15 days of such award prefer an appeal to the Commissioner." Subsection (3) of the same section empowers the Deputy Commissioner or the Commissioner, either of his own motion or on an application made in this behalf at any time within five years from the date of the award or order made or passed by himself or by any of his predecessors in office, to review the award or order and pass such order thereon as he may deem fit. The proviso to subsection (3) lays down "that an order under this subsection shall not, except in so far as it corrects an arithmetical, clerical or patent error or mistake in the award or order under review, enhance the amount of compensation awarded".
7. It will be seen that under section 36 of the Ordinance it was open to the Capital Development Authority to challenge the award of the Deputy Commissioner by way of an appeal before the Commissioner, but it did not do so and instead filed a review petition before the Deputy Commissioner himself after his award had been challenged in appeal by the land-owners. In these circumstances, it was clearly not open to the Deputy Commissioner to proceed to review his own order during the pendency of the appeal before the superior officer; nor could the Deputy Commissioner alter the award in review after the appeal had been decided by the Commissioner.
8. In these circumstances, the Deputy Commissioner acted correctly in refusing to interfere in review.
9. The Commissioner also acted correctly in rejecting the review filed by the Authority as he had already considered the matter in appeal at the instance of the land-owners. The High Court was, therefore, right in taking the view that the proper course for the Capital Development Authority was to have filed counter-appeals, or to have raised cross-objections to the award made by the Deputy Commissioner. The High Court has properly exercised its discretion in not interfering in the matter in the circumstances of these cases.
10. For the foregoing reasons, the petitions fail and are hereby dismissed.