1. ANWARUL HAQ, J.-The dispute in this case concerns an evacuee house No. 11 situate in Block No. 8 in the town of Khanewal. The petitioner is a local and was occupying this house as a tenant under the non-Muslim owner since the year 1937. He gave one room of the house to another local person named Hakim Mohammad Ramzan. In the year 1952, the Deputy Rehabilitation Commissioner formally allotted the property to the petitioner and Hakim Mohammad Ramzan according to their possession.
2. When the settlement operations started, the petitioner as well as Hakim Mohammad Ramzan applied for the transfer of the house on applications in form LH. However, both the applications were rejected by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner on 23-10-1959 on the ground that the evaluation of the house was above Rs. 10,000 and it could not, therefore, be transferred to locals. It may be stated that according to the annual assessment of the property, as carried out by the Excise and Taxation Department, the evaluation price of the house came to Rs. 24,000 whereas according to the Municipal assessme nt the evaluation price amounted to only Rs. 5,280 which was later enhanced to Rs. 6,600 by the Assistant Settlement Com--missioner. However, in accordance with the instructions then in force, the higher of the two assessments was taken into consideration for the purpose of determining the entitlement of local applicants for the transfer of evacuee houses.
3. A second order of rejection of the LH form of the petitioner was again passed by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner on 24th December, 1959, while dealing with a similar application filed by Hakim Mohammad Ramzan; Instead of filing an appeal against the order dated the 23 October 1959 (or the one dated the 24th of December 1959), the petitioner filed three miscellaneousrd applications, two before the Deputy Settlement Commissioner and one before the Additional Settlement Commissioner. In the meantime, Hakim Mohammad Ramzan's wife Mst. Razia Begum also entered the picture by submitting a CH form for the transfer of the house. Without obtaining prior permission from the Additional Settle--ment Commissioner, the learned Deputy Settlement Commissioner decided to review his previous orders, and by an order made on the 5th of April 1960 he divided the property between the petitioner and Mst. Razia Begum. Unfortunately, both the parties were dissatisfied with this order and filed appeals before the Additional Settlement Commissioner. During the pendency of these appeals, the Additional Settlement Commissioner passed an order on 2-8-1960 permitting the Deputy Settlement Commissioner to review his previous orders with the result that this Officer made a fresh order on 9-8-1960 directing that the portion in possession of the petitioner be disposed of by open auction as its evaluation price was more than Rs. 10,000.
4. The portion in question was, accordingly, disposed of by auction on 4-10-1960, and purchased by respondent Sh. Iqbal Bakhsh for a sum of Rs. 12,500. Once again, the petitioner did not file any appeal against the order of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner dated the 9th of August 1960, or the auction of the house on 4-10-1960. Instead he submitted a miscellaneous application on 22-2- 1961, on which the Additional Settlement Commissioner carried out a site inspection. The petitioner's appeal directed against the order of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner dated 5-4-1.960 was ultimately rejected on 11-5-1961.
5. Instead of filing a revision petition against this appellate order, the petitioner again moved a review application on 5-9-1961 on the basis of fresh instructions issued by the Chief Settlement Commissioner on 9-8-1961 to the effect that even in the case of locals the lower assessment of the property had to be made the basis for ascertaining the evaluation price. The review application was, however, rejected by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner on 18-1-1962 in view of an amendment made in section 21, of the Act by an Ordinance promulgated on the 13th of January 1962, (Ordinance 11 of 1962). An appeal filed by the petitioner against this order was dismissed on the 25th of April 1962, and his revision petition was similarly dismissed on the 30th of July 1962. Both these Officers took the view that the property had already been disposed of by auction, and the auction had been confirmed in favour of the auction purchaser before the review application was moved. The Additional Settlement Commissioner further observed that the revision petition was hopelessly barred by time in so far as the order of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner dated the 9th of August 1960 was concerned. He added that the petitioner had not even cared to make an application under section 5 of the Limitation Act for condonation of delay.
6. Aggrieved by these orders of the Settlement authorities, the petitioner invoked the writ jurisdiction of the Lahore High Court, but his petition was dismissed by a learned Single Judge on the 5th of December 1965. He then preferred an appeal under clause 10 of the Letters Patent, but the same has also been dismissed by a Division Bench of that High Court, on the 16th of February 1973.
7. Special leave to appeal is now sought mainly on the ground that the Settlement authorities as well as the learned Judges in the High Court have throughout failed to appreciate the fact that the petitioner was illegally deprived of his entitlement to the transfer of the house on the basis of erroneous instructions issued by the Chief Settlement Commissioner regarding the calculation of evaluation price of evacuee houses for the purpose of determining the eligibility of locals in this behalf. It is submitted that in accordance with Paragraph 2l-A(1) of Settlement Scheme No. 1, the lower of the two assessm ents had to be taken as the basis of calculation, and that the correct position was outlined by the Chief Settlement Com--missioner in the instructions issued by him on 9-8-1961. It is contended that the various orders made by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner against the petitioner were, therefore, a nullity in the eye of law, and no question of limitation could, therefore, arise in this case.
8. It is correct that in accordance with the provisions contained in Paragraph 22-A(1) of Settlement Scheme No. I, the lower of the two assessments had to be made the basis of calculation for determining the evaluation price of the portion in dispute and the instructions issued by the Chief Settlement Commissioners on I 1-1 t-1959 were erroneous, and could not take effect as against the specific provisions of the Scheme itself, For this reason it can be said that the orders made by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner on 23-10-1959, 24 12-1959 and 9-8-1960 against the petitioner were incorrect and unsustainable in law, but the petitioner was under an obligation to agitate against these orders in accordance with the provisions in the relevant statute regarding appeal and revision. As already noticed, the only appeal filed by the petitioner was the one directed against the order of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner dated the 5th of April 1960, by which the property had been divided between the petitioner and Mst. Razia, wife of Hakim Mohammad Ramzan. The learned counsel's contention that the order dated the 5th of April 1960 could not be reviewed during the pendency of an appeal against the order loses sight of the fact that the Additional Settlement Commissioner who was the appellate authority, had himself granted permission to review this order, with the result that the appeal had in fact become infructuous. It is also to be noticed that the order dated the 5th of April 1960 had itself been passed in review of the earlier orders, without the Deputy Settlement Commissioner obtaining the permission of the Additional Settlement Commissioner as required by law. It thus appears to us that the order dated the 9th of August 1960 could not just be ignored by the petitioner on the ground that t it was a nullity in the eye of law. By his failure to agitate against this order by way of appeal or revision, the petitioner forfeited his right to have this order set aside at a subsequent date.
9. When the petitioner filed his final review application on 5-9-1961 in the light of the latest instructions of the Chief Settlement Commissioner dated the 9th of August 1961, the property already stood transferred, by way of fir' auction, to respondent Iqbal Bakhsh. The Settlement authorities have stated, as a fact, that the auction had been confirmed. This point was not challenged by the petitioner in the Settlement Courts, and for the first time it was sought to be raised before the Letters Patent Bench, but it was disallowed, and the High Court rightly proceeded on the assumption that auction had been confirmed, even though the confirmation order was itself not available on the record. In these circumstances, it has been rightly held by all the Courts below that rights which had accrued to the respondent, as an auction purchaser, could not be disturbed by way of review at the instance of the petitioner. He had failed to challenge in time the incorrect or erroneous orders made against him by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner on the various dates already mentioned above.
10. For the foregoing reasons, we see no justification to interfere, and would, accordingly, dismiss this petition.