' RUSTAM S. SIDHWA, J.---This is an appeal filed by Allah Ditta appellant calling in question the judgment of a learned Single Judge of the Lahore High Court, dated 27-3-1984 accepting the revision petition of All Muhammad respondent.
2. The brief facts of this case are that on 9-1-167 the Collector, Sahiwal allotted Ihata No,95/112 in Chak No,113/12-L in Tchsil and District Sahiwal to Allah Ditta, appellant. Ali Muhammad was unauthorisedly occupying the said Ihata. The Collector took action for his eviction under section 32 of the Colonization of Government Lands (Punjab) Act, 1912. The said respondent was evicted on 21- 1-1967 from the Ihata in question and the same was scaled and delivered to Fateh Muhammad, Lambardar, and Abdul Hakim, Member, Union Council, as Spurdars.
3. Ali Muhammad respondent No,1 filed a civil suit on 17-12-1968 against the appellant and respondent No,2 alleging that the Ihata was originally allotted to one Fateh Muhammad in 1950 for the installation of a Chacki and that this Fatch Muhammad had sold the said Ihata, alongwith the Chacki, to one Salamat All Shah, who in turn had sold it to him (i,e. The respondent No,1) on 1-9-1955 and that he had also got this Ihata allotted to himself and that the further allotment of this Ihata to the appellant on 9-1-1967 was void and of no legal effect.
4. The appellant contested the suit of respondent No,1 on the ground, inter alia, that the suit was barred by section 36 of the Punjab Colonization of Lands Act, that the respondent being out of possession the suit was not maintainable and that the allotment order of the Collector was perfectly in accordance with law.
5. The learned Civil Judge framed the following issues:--"(1) Whether this Court had no jurisdiction to try this suit?
(2) Whether the plaintiff is in possession of the Ihata in dispute as an allottee of defendant No,3.
(3) Whether the order of allotment of defendant No,2 dated 9-1-1967 is illegal, ultra vires and void for reasons given in para. 4 of the plaint?
(4) Relief."
' The trial Court, after taking into consideration the oral and documentary evidence produced by respondent No,1, held on issue No,2 that the said respondent was not in possession of the Ihata in dispute as an allottee of the Punjab Government. On issue No,3 the trial Court held that the there having been no order of allotment in favour of respondent No,1, the allotment made by the Collector in favour of the appellant was lawful. On issue No,1 the trial Court held that the suit was barred by the Punjab Colonization of Government Lands Act and he therefore, dismissed the suit on 21-3-1972.
6. On appeal by respondent No,1, the learned District Judge, by judgment dated 20-1-1973, upheld the findings of the trial Court on all the issues.
7. Respondent No,1 then filed R.S.A. No,94 of 1973, which was converted by the High Court into Civil Revision No,274 of 1984. The High Court accepted the revision on inter alia the following grounds:--
(a) That the trial Court had decided the suit in a cursory manner.
(b) that it stood proved from the testimony of P.W.7 that the Ihata had been purchased by Salamat Ali Shah from the original allottee and unless the allotment order made in favour of Salamat Ali Shah had been lawfully cancelled, the Ihata could not have been allotted in favour of the appellant.
(c) that the lower Court had failed to take notice of the fact that the respondent was a genuine refugee in possession of the Ihata and the Government instructions authorised the regularization of the authorised occupation.
(d) that the allotment order in favour of the appellant was without lawful authority and therefore the jurisdiction of the civil Court was not barred.
8. The appellant now challenges the above judgment.
9. On behalf of the appellant it is submitted, on the basis of section 10(4) of the Colonization of Government Lands (Punjab) Act, V of 1912, that no person can be deemed to he a tenant or to have any right or title in the land allotted to him until a written order has been passed by the Collector and he had taken possession of the land with the permission of the Collector. It is further submitted, on the basis of section 19 of the said Act, that neither Fateh Muhammad, the original allottee could have sold the Ihata to Salamat All Shah, without the prior permission of the Collector, nor the said Salamat Ali Shah could have sold the Ihata to the present respondent without the said permission and since no permissions have been brought on the record, the alleged transfer of the disputed Ihata by Fateh Muhammad in favour of Salamat Ali Shah and by Salamat Ali Shah in favour of the respondent must he treated as void and of no legal effect. It is further submitted, on the basis of section 36 of said Act, that the learned Judge of the High Court was barred from holding he had jurisdiction to deal with the case. It is lastly contended that the respondent has not been able to produce with any written order passed by the Collector allotting the Ihata in question to him or that he had taken possession of the said Ihata with the permission of the Collector and that though some attempt was made to show that the original allotment file of the Ihata had been lost from the Office of the Collector, no secondary evidence was produced to show that such a written order had been passed, nor any evidence was produced to show that such an order had been in existence or had been acted upon through which the respondent had secured possession.
10. On behalf of the respondent, the findings of the learned High Court Judge have been pressed into service. It is submitted that the original file of the allotment having been lost, secondary evidence was produced by the respondent, which, being substantial and reliable, was accepted by the learned Single Judge.
11. We have given our anxious consideration to the arguments advanced by the learned counsel for the appellant and respondent No,1 and have also perused the record. There can be no doubt that before any person lays any claim to any tenancy to Government land he has to show that he secured the said tenancy through a written order passed by the Collector in that behalf and he took possession of the land with the permission of the Collector. This is obvious from section 10(4) of the Colonization of Government Land (Punjab) Act, 1912. The case of the respondent was that initially Fateh Muhammad had secured allotment of the land for installation of a flour mills in 1950, which flour mill he had installed, whereafter he had sold the same to Salamat Ali Shah, who in turn had sold it to him. No evidence was produced by the respondent to show that any allotment order was made in 1950 in favour of the said Fateh Muhammad or prior permissions had been given by the Commissioner or his nominee i,e. The Collector, to the transfers effected in favour of Salamat Ali Shah and later in favour of the respondent. No secondary evidence was called by the respondent in the said connection. With regard to some evidence produced by respondent No,1 through some witnesses, including Ghulam Bari P.W.2, that some allotment order did exist in favour of the said respondent, the same is so weak and flimsy that in any case it cannot be accepted with any degree of safety, much less conviction.
Not only is there no evidence as regards the existence of any such allotment order in favour of respondent No,1, but there is also no evidence aliunde from which it can be safely inferred that such an order was passed by the Collector and had been acted upon by the other Officers of the Department and through which the respondent ultimately came into possession of the disputed Ihata. There is no evidence of the lost file being reconstructed from which it can be satisfactorily inferred that respondent No,1 came in possession of the Ihata through an allotment order passed by the Collector. It appears that the judgment of the learned Commissioner, Lahore Division, who was the competent Officer seized of the case in the Revenue jurisdiction, and of the learned Civil Judge and the District Judge, Sahiwal, who were competent Officers seized of the case in the general civil jurisdiction, were based upon a proper appreciation of the evidence on the record and the law on the subject. We respectfully submit that the learned Single Judge of the High Court was not competent to interfere with concurrent findings of fact arrived at by three Courts below, in the absence of any misreading or blatant misappreciation of the evidence, which was not there in the present case. The judgment of the High Court, therefore, deserves to be set aside.
12. For the foregoing reasons, we accept this appeal, set aside the decision of the Lahore High Court dated 27-3-1984 and restore that of the learned District Judge, Sahiwal, dated 20-1-1973. However, there shall he no order as to costs.