1. ANWARUL HAQ, J.-This petition for special leave to appeal seeks to call in question an order made by a learned Single Judge of the Lahore. High Court on the 24th of April 1977, whereby Constitution petition bearing.No. 224-R of 1961 instituted by the present petitioner Khuda Bakhsh in respect of the transfer of evacuee property bearing No. 214/13-III situate in Sabzi Mandi, Sahiwal, was dismissed.
2. There has been prolonged litigation between. The parties regarding this property, which is a doubter-storied building and consists of a shop and a residential portion. The petitioner claims to be in possession of the shop, four residential rooms on the ground floor and one room with a bath- room on the first floor, whereas the respondent Mohammad Sharif is stated to be in possession of one room on the first floor. Both are claimants. The petitioner submitted both C. S. And C. H. Forms and prayed for the transfer of the entire building to him, whereas the respondent only submitted C.
3. H. Form for the residential portion. The first order on the Settlement side is that of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner dated the 3rd of November 1959, by which the whole of the property was transferred to the respondent on the ground of prior allotment. The petitioner filed an appeal which was dismissed by the Additional Settlement Commissioner .On the 21st of November 1959, the petitioner then filed a revision petition which was partly accepted by the Settlement Commissioner by his order .Dated the 5th of March ; 960. The property was declared to be divisible, and the shop was transferred to the petitioner and the residential portion to respondent No. 1.
4. The petitioner was not satisfied, and accordingly he filed a second revision petition before the Chief Settlement Commissioner which was, however, dismissed on the 18th of May 1960. The respondent had also filed a second revision petition, but that remained pending. The petitioner then filed Writ Petition No. 224/R of 1961 in the High Court of West Pakistan at Lahore. In the High Court, in those proceedings, the Chief Settlement Commissioner -filed a written statement on the 17th of July 1961 expressing a desire to suo motu review his order under challenge, namely, the one dated the Isth of May 15 6t>. The writ petition was accordingly kept pending by the High Court, and on the 5th of February 1963, Mr. Mohammad Rafiq, Settlement Commissioner, in the purported exercise of his delegated power of review, set aside the earlier order of the Chief Settlement Commissioner dated the 18th of May 1960 and transferred the entire building to the petitioner on the finding that the property was one indivisible unit. On this view of the matter, the second revision petition filed by respondent Mohammad Sharif was also dismissed. Relief having been granted by the Chief Settlement Commissioner, Writ Petition No. 224-R of 1961 was discussed by the High Court as having become infructuous.
5. This order of the High Court was challenged in appeal in this Court by the petitioner Khuda Bakhsh in Civil Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 343 of 1967, giving rise to Civil Appeal No. 171 of 1969.
6. The appeal was, however, dismissed by this Court on the 3rd of November 1970. It was held that the notification dated the 26th of April 1962, on which reliance was placed for the purpose of investing Sh. Mohammad Rafiq with review powers of the Chief Settlement Commissioner, was not published in the official Gazette; that in any case the power of review vesting in the Chief Settlement Commissioner had already been taken away with effect from 13th of January 1962 by Ordinance II of 1962 and it could not, therefore, be delegated to Sh. Mohammad Rafiq on the 26th of April 1962; that the notification in question did not itself delegate the power of suo motu review; and finally, that no review proceedings were pending before the Chief Settlement Commissioner prior to the 13th of January 1962. This Court observed that the mere intention of the Chief Settlement Commissioner as expressed in his written statement filed in the High Court on the 17th of July 1961 in Writ Petition No. 224/R of 1961 did not amount to pending review proceedings which could be saved in terms of the relevant Ordinances which had taken away the power of review with effect from 13- 1-1962. On this view of the matter, it was further observed that there was no point in the High Court remanding the case to the Chief Settlement Commissioner for reviewing his earlier order of the 18th of May 1960, as the power of review was no longer available in this case. However, the Court indicated that Khuda Bakhsh may have his Writ Petition No. 224/R of 1961 revived for a re-hearing by the High Court.
7. The High Court has observed, in the order under appeal, that the Deputy Settlement Commissioner, the Additional Settlement Commissioner, the Settlement Commissioner and the Chief Settlement Commissioner have ail recorded concurrent findings in favour of the prior allotment and possession of the respondent Mohammad Sharif in so far as the residential portion of the building is concerned. Accordingly, it was not possible for the High Court to disturb these findings while exercising its extraordinary writ jurisdiction, as the counsel for the petitioner had failed to point out any illegality in arriving at these findings. The High Court has further observed that it was within the domain of the Settlement Authorities to divide the property into commercial and residential units.
8. No justification was made out for interference by the High Court with the mode of division adopted by these authorities. It may be stated that there is no dispute about the shop, which stands transferred to the petitioner.
9. The learned counsel, appearing for the petitioner, has raised two main contentions before us-
(a) that the entire legal position stands materially altered by the promulgation of Settlement Commissioners (Validation of Orders) Act, 1972, Act (VI of 1972) on the 9th of September 1972, section 2. Whereof validates, with retrospective effect, all orders made in review as Chief Settlement Commissioners by those Settlement Commissioners to whom the powers of second revision of the Chief Settlement Commissioner had been delegated, but not specific delegation was made for the purposes of review under section 21 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act of 1958, and therefore, the order made by Sh. Mohammad Rafiq in review on 5-2-63 should be declared to be valid and operative in favour of the petitioner who was is prior possession of the disputed portion, and findings to the contrary, recorded by the various Settlement Authorities and upheld by the High Court, are incorrect and not sustainable on the record.
10. There is no merit in these submissions. We have already referred to the judgment of this Court in petitioner's Civil Appeal No. 171 of 1969, decided on the 3rd of November 1970, in which it was held that no powers of review had been delegated to Sh. Mohammad Rafiq earlier than the 26th of April 1962, and that on the 13th of January 1962 no review proceedings were pending before the Chief Settlement Commissioner, and, therefore, this was a case in which the power of review could not be exercised after this date as the same had been taken away by Ordinance It of 1962. The effect of section 2 of the Settlement Commissioners (Validation of Orders) Act (Act VI of 1972) would at best be to confer validity on orders passed in review by Settlement Commissioners without the power of review having been specifically delegated to them by the Chief Settlement Commissioner, if they were otherwise delegates of the Chief Settlement Commissioner for deciding second revision petitions. But this validation could not extend to orders which could not at all be made by the Chief Settlement Commis--sioner himself or any of his delegates owing to tile deletion of the power of review by Ordinance It of 1962 with effect from 13-1-1962. In the present case, there is a binding finding recorded by this Court that even the Chief Settlement Commissioner could not exercise the powers of review, as no such proceedings were pending before him on 13-1-1962. Such being the case, no question arises of conferring any retrospective validity on the order made by a delegate of the Chief Settlement Commissioner. The first contention, therefore, fails and is hereby repelled.
11. On merits, we have already stated that there is a concurrent finding recorded by all the Settlement authorities regarding the prior possession of the respondent is respect of the residential portion of the property. The High Court was clearly right in saying that it could not interfere with such d a finding. Similarly, the question of the mode of division, having been properly decided by the Settlement authorities, was not open to interference by the High Court.
12. For the foregoing reasons, the petition fails and is hereby dismissed.