' This judgment will dispose of this appeal as well as another appeal (F.A.O.35/78) as the questions of law and facts involved in both these appeals are one and the same.
2. These appeals were directed against the order of remand dated 15-11-1977, whereby the judgment and decrees dated 23-12-1976 dismissing the suits filed by the reversioners under custom were set aside and the learned trial Court was directed to record evidence of the parties on issues No,3 and 4 and decide the suits afresh. The suits filed by the respondents were based on the assertion that Fateh Muhammad, their father, held ancestral land in India and on migration to Pakistan the land which was allotted to him, was so allotted and obtained in lieu of the ancestral land held in India and as such, he under custom was not entitled to sell the land without legal necessity. Fateh Muhammad allottee, on whom the proprietary rights vested after 1964, had sold the land to the appellants vide sale-deeds dated 15-12-1971 and 14th May, 1970.
3. The orders of remand dated 15-11-1977 cannot be sustained for two reasons. Firstly, the allotment of the land made to Fateh Muhammad was a grant and as such he was not holding the land under custom as was held in the case of Syed Abdur Rashid v. Pakistan (PLD 1962 Lahore 42). Moreover, as under section 16 of the Displaced Persons (Land Settlement) Act, proprietary rights vested in Fateh Muhammad since 1964, custom no longer applied to him when he A sold the land to the appellants on 15-12-1971 and 14-5-1970. Secondly, the matter has been ended by West Pakistan Muslim Laws (Shariat) Amendment Act, 1983 (XIII of 1983) enforced on 1-8-1983. Under this Ordinance all such suits and other proceedings of such nature pending in any Court have been abated. The suits as such stand abated. The appeal thus stands fructified and is disposed of accordingly. The parties are left to bear their own cost.