1. ' ZAFFAR HUSSAIN MIRZA, J.---In these two petitions for leave to appeal the facts are almost identical and as identical questions of law arise for determination, they are being disposed of by this common order.
2. ' Kassim son of Arab, the petitioner in Civil Petition for Leave to Appeal No,120-K of 1989 is the father and Iqbal, the petitioner in Civil Petition for Leave to Appeal No,121-K of 1989 is his son. According to the respondent they were both tenants in the respective premises in their occupation, of the previous owner Budha son of Soomar. Sycd Rahim Shah, the respondent herein, claiming to have purchased the building comprising the premises in the occupation of the petitioners, sought their ejectment on the ground of non-payment of rent. The petitioners contested the eviction application and their defence was that Kassim himself had purchased the property from the previous owner earlier and thereby became the owner of the premises in the two petitions, with the result that they were not the tenants of the respondent. The evidence was led by the parties before the Rent Controller who held that the respondent was the owner and landlord of the premises, and therefore, as the petitioners had committed default in the payment of rent, he ordered their eviction. The case of the respondent was that he had acquired the title in the property from its previous owner Budha son of Soomar by means of a registered conveyance deed on 11th August, 1979. The mutation in the property register was also effected in his name on the basis of this document. Thereafter he had served a notice under section 18 of the Ordinance on the petitioners conveying to them the factum of transfer of ownership in his favour. Yet the petitioners admittedly declined to recognise him as the landlord and failed to pay rent to him.
3. ' On the other hand the petitioners defended the action for their ejectment on a plea that prior to the alleged transfer in favour of respondent, petitioner Kassim had entered into an agreement for the purchase of the property on 4th July, 1978, whereby he ceased to be the tenant and was in possession of the premises in his own right under the terms of the agreement. It was further pleaded that Kassim had filed a civil suit in 1980 for specific performance of contract against Budha prior to the institution of the ejectment proceedings, which is still pending trial.
4. ' In the evidence Budha, the previous owner, was examined who supported the plea of the petitioners regarding the agreement to sell executed by him in favour of Kassim. According to him he had sold three tenaments i,e. Bearing Nos.3, 4 and 5 to the respondent, and for tenaments No,1 and 2 he executed an agreement to sell with the respondent. However, he had filed a suit for cancellation of the sale-deed in favour of respondent which is also pending adjudication. He was contradicted with a statement in his written statement filed in the suit instituted by Kassim where he had denied the execution of agreement to sell with the latter, saying that his signature was obtained thereon fraudulently.
5. ' In view of the aforesaid facts on record, the learned Judge in the High Court, in the light of the law laid down by this Court in the case of Province of Punjab v. Mufti Abdul Ghani PLD 1985 SC 1, came to the conclusion which may be stated in his words: "Presently the respondent Sycd Rahim Shah by virtue of a registered sale agreement is entitled to receive all the benefits including the rent. He sent notice to the appellant, which was not replied. I do not like to enter into the controversy between the parties and the facts of the civil suits pending between them in the Courts, but at this stage the record has also been mutated in the name of Rahim Shah. The Rent Controller has rightly come to the conclusion that there exists relationship between the parties as legal requirements have been complied with."
6. ' As a result the learned Single Judge, who decided the appeals dismissed both appeals filed by the petitioners by separate judgments of the same date, namely 11th January, 1988.
7. ' It may he stated here that so far as petitioner Iqbal is concerned, his further plea was that in regard to the premises in the ejectment case against him, his father Kassim was the tenant, but by virtue of the agreement executed by the previous owner, he had ceased to be its tenant and was in possession in his own right. The learned Single Judge on the same reasoning as noticed earlier and further on his (Iqbal's) own admission that he had been in possession of the premises for the last 18-19 years, found his plea as untenable.
8. ' The petitioners, being aggrieved by the respective orders of eviction passed against them, filed separate appeals before the High Court of Sindh, which also failed.
9. ' In support of these petitions the main contention of the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners is that as the title of the respondent is under challenge and civil suits are pending in the competent Civil Court the learned Rent Controller ought to have held that there exists no relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties and should have left the respondent to go to the Civil Court to establish his title. It was pointed out that petitioner Kassim had examined the attesting witness to the agreement of sale, who has supported his assertion. So far the sale-deed executed in favour of the respondent is concerned, learned counsel urged that the same was also under the shadow as allegations of fraud were levelled against the respondent in obtaining this sale-deed. On all these points counsel contended the respondent had failed to establish prima facie title as owner of the premises.
10. ' We have carefully considered the contentions of the learned counsel in the light of the order passed by the Rent Controller and the judgment of the High Court, and the evidence brought on record. We find that the most important witness in this case is the previous owner Budha son of Soomar. He has admitted his signature on the sale-deed and the factum of sale made by him in favour of the respondent, but according to him he had intended to sell only five tenaments out of 16 tenaments standing on the land comprising the property commonly called Budha Soomar compound. This witness has admitted that he had not obtained partition of the property before the sale-deed and has also admitted his signature on the letters of attornment addressed to his tenants for recognizing the respondent as their landlord. But his allegation is that his signature on these documents were obtained by fraud. We have perused the deed of conveyance executed in favour of respondent and registered on 11th August, 1979 which shows that the entire property comprisiong land admeasure 1213 sq.Yds. Bearing Survey No,L.R.8, Lawrence Quarters of the city of Karachi with old structure standing thereon, was the subject-matter of the sale as fully described in the schedule annexed to the sale-deed. Therefore, the document purports to transfer the entire right and interest of Budha in favour of the respondent and that is why he has filed a suit for cancellation of the instrument. His evidence further shows that he has stopped dealing with the property after the date of the sale although according to him he had entrusted the collection of rents from the tenants of the portion not covered by the sale-deed to the respondent. All this evidence, prima facie, supports the plea of the respondent that he had acquired the right of the ownership in the property through sale-deed. Until the sale-deed is cancelled and is out of the field, the respondent can claim to have stepped into the shoes of the previous owner, entitled to recover rent from the tenants of the building which was the subject-matter of the sale. There is another aspect of the case which cannot be ignored. Even if the agreement of sale was executed by the previous owner on a prior date before the registered sale-deed, by virtue of section 50 the registered sale-deed, nonetheless has precedence over the prior unregistered deed of agreement.
11. This position would remain till such time the Civil Court passes a decree against the respondent in any of the suits pending in respect of the property. However, for the purpose of the Rent Controller, the position as it stands today was sufficient to satisfy the requirements of law that the respondent was landlord entitled to recover rent. In this view of the matter we find no reason to interfere with the decision of the High Court, which is unexceptionable.
12. ' In the result both petitions are dismissed.