1. HAMOODUR RAHMAN, C. J.-These are three petitions filed by the same petitioners for special leave to appeal from a consolidated order of a learned Single Judge of the Sind & Baluchistan High Court in three Constitutional Petitions Nos. 502, 503 & 514 of 1968 calling in question a common order of the Settlement Authorities regarding three different properties situated at Nawabshah.
2. The petitioners are members of a joint Hindu family. The petitioner No. 1 is the son of one Seth Behrumal Bhattia who used to reside with his brother Seth Hirdaram and other members of the joint family at Quetta where too the joint family held immovable properties. Seth Hirdaram died issueless in 1936 and Seth Behrumal was afflicted with paralysis in the year 1942. Due to this ailment he could not stand the severe winter at Quetta and used to go to Bikaner in India during winter every year. On one of such occasions he died at Bikaner on the 11th of September 1948, leaving him surviving the petitioner No. 1, his brother Chetanram, a son of the latter, and petitioners Nos. 2 and 3 being sons of petitioner No. 1.
3. As the tenants of the Quetta properties started creating difficulties, the petitioner applied under section 9 of the Baluchistan (Protection of Evacuee Property) Regulation No. 1 of 1948 and obtained a certificate on the 20 of October 1948, declaring that the Quetta properties mentioned in the certificate belonging to Messrs Hirdaram Bahrumal & Sons were non---evacuee properties.
4. As the tenants were still creating trouble, another order was obtained on the 28th of October 1952, by the petitioner No. 1 from the Additional Custodian re-affirming that the Quetta properties were non-evacuee properties.
5. This order was challenged in review and then in revision by one of the tenants and ultimately the Custodian, by his order of the 13th of September 1957, held that, as Seth Behrumal had died in India,th he had become an evacuee and, therefore, the properties were evacuee properties. Ultimately, this litigation came up before this Court in Civil Appeal No. 54 of 1959, and this Court, by its judgment of the 31st of May 1961, set aside the order of the Custodian and remanded the case back to him for final determination as to whether Bahrumal had become an evacuee under the provisions of Regulation of 1948. His case could not be determined on the basis of the subsequent Regulation of 1950, as had been done by the Custodian.
6. On remand, the Custodian of Evacuee Property, by his order of the 9th of December 1963, held that Seth Behrumal enjoyed the status of a non. Evacuee prior to his death and, therefore, the petitioners I to 3, who were themselves non-evacuees, were entitled to a 3/5th share of the said properties but the remaining 2/5th share therein was declared to be evacuee property, as Chetanram, a brother of the petitioner No. 1, had admittedly migrated to India.
7. It was only after this order that on the 4th of May 196% the petitioners moved a Miscellaneous application before the Deputy Settlement Commis--sioner, Nawabshah, in respect of the properties there, which had been allotted to displaced persons coming over from India and had even been subsequently transferred to them when settlement operations started. In the case relating to house bearing C. S. No. 1011-t 1-B-6, Ward B', the P. T. D. Was also issued on 12-5-63 ; in respect of house bearing C. ` S. No. 11-A-627/628, Mohni Bazar, the P. T. D. Was issued on 28-6-63 ; and in respect of a shop bearing C. S. No. 832-833 (11-A/263, 11-A/263-A), Ward B', Nawabshah, the P. T. D. Was issued in favour of the wife of the occupant on 8-11-63. Notwithstanding the issuance of these P. T. Ds. In favour of the transferees, the Deputy Settlement Commissioner, after issuing notice to the transferees in possession of the properties concerned, on the 23rd of November 1966, cancelled the transfers in their favour to the extent on 3/5th share with a further direction for partition of the properties.
8. The transferees moved the Additional Settlement Commissioner in appeal and the Settlement Commissioner in revision without any success, and then they invoked the writ jurisdiction of the High Court by three writ petitions which, as already stated, were consolidated and heard together, because, the Settlement Authorities had also cancelled the transfers by a common order. The High Court took the view, relying on a decision of this Court in the case of S. Anwar Hussain Sant v.
9. Sarfraz Ahmad (PLD 1971 SC 669) that the Settlement Authorities had no jurisdiction to cancel the P. T. Ds., as, after the issuance of the P. T. Ds., they had become functus officio. The orders of the Settlement Authorities were, therefore, set aside.
10. The petitioners have now come up to this Court for special leave to appeal, and It is contended on their behalf that, after they had been declared to be non-evacuees, their properties, no matter where they were situated, could not be disposed of as evacuee properties. The Settlement Authorities had no jurisdiction to deal with them as such or to transfer them. The mere fact that they had not challenged the orders of the Settlement Authorities before the issuance of the P. T. Ds, could not defeat their vested rights, because, the P. T. Ds. Must be held to be nullities in the eye of law, having been issued in respect of properties which were never evacuee properties.
11. We are unable to accept this contention. A right, even where it exists, has to be enforced by a proper remedy and in a proper forum. The Settle--ment Authorities have only jurisdiction to deal with evacuee properties which are in the compensation pool. They have no right to declare as non- --evacuee a property which has been treated as an evacuee property, brought on the register of the Custodian, managed by the Custodian and ultimately transferred to the compensation pool.
12. The proper procedure for this purpose is by way of an application to the Custodian to declare the property to be non-evacuee, if it has already been treated as an evacuee property. The petitioners should have followed this procedure.
13. Again, after a P. T. D. Has been issued and the property has gone outs of the compensation pool, the Settlement Authorities have no jurisdiction left to make any order with regard to such a property except in so far as they may be specifically authorised to do so by rules made in that behalf. No such rule has been pointed out to us under which the Settlement Authorities could, in the present case, have cancelled the P. T. Ds.
14. The High Court, therefore, acted rightly in setting aside the orders of the Settlement Authorities.
15. These petitions must, therefore, fail and are, accordingly, dismissed. The petitioners, if so advised, may seek their remedy before the appropriate authority having jurisdiction in the matter.