1. ' ANWARUL HAQ, J.-The petitioner seeks leave to appeal against an order made by a learned Single Judge of the Lahore High Court on 7-11-1974, whereby a Constitution petition, moved by the petitioner to challenge the cancellation of his entitlement certificate bearing No, 87651 for 4134 produce index units of agricultural land, was dismissed.
2. ' From the facts narrated in the petition as well as stated orally at the Bar by the petitioner and his learned counsel, the case for the petitioner appears to be that, as a Jammu & Kashmir refugee, he submitted in January or February 1956 by registered post, a claim for land abandoned by him in occupied Kashmir. However, no action was taken by the relevant authorities to verify the claim, and instead the matter was sent from Peshawar to Rawalpindi and then to Lahore. The petitioner being at that time employed in the Army could not pursue the claim, but somehow or the other a Q. P. R.
3. Was issued in his name on the 30th Of November 1967 and delivered at his home. According to the petitioner, his claim was then transferred by the Deputy Secretary (Rural) to the Chief Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner, West Pakistan, Lahore, to Tehsil Kahuta in the Rawalpindi district by his letter dated the 21st of September 1969. Thereafter, the petitioner obtained allotment of agricultural land in certain villages of Kahuta Tehsil.
4. ' In the year 1973, the respondents Nos. 3 and 5 laid information against the petitioner, as a result of which an inquiry was conducted by an Officer on Special Duty in the Central Record Office, after notice to the petitioner. This Officer passed an order on the 26th of January 1974 holding that the entitlement certificate was bogus, as no claim had at any time been registered by the petitioner, nor verified in his name by the Central Record Office.
5. ' Aggrieved by this order, the petitioner filed an appeal which was dismissed by a learned Settlement Commissioner on 16-2-1974. This Officer affirmed the findings of fact recorded by the Officer on Special Duty.
6. ' Thereafter, the petitioner moved the Lahore High Court in the exercise of its extraordinary jurisdiction, but the learned Judge hearing the petition was not persuaded to interfere with the findings recorded by the statutory authorities. Before dismissing the petitioner's writ petition, the learned Judge took the trouble of summoning the relevant record from the Central Record Office.
7. An Officer by the name of Mr. Razi Haider appeared before the learned Judge and stated that "there is neither a file with regard to the claim in question nor any claim." The learned Judge then asked the learned counsel for the petitioner to show any verification order or any other document in support of the petitioner's claim, but the learned counsel was unable to do so.
8. ' Leave to appeal is sought on the ground that the entitlement certificate produced by the petitioner for obtaining allotment of agricultural land bore the genuine signatures of an Officer by the name of Ch Nisar Ahmad, but the 0 S. D. Of the Central Record Office, who was entrusted with the inquiry against the petitioner, failed to summon this Officer to prove the genuineness of the signatures. It is next submitted that from the letter issued by the Central Record Office on the 21st of September 1969 regarding the transfer of the petitioner's claim from Lahore district to Kahuta Tehsil of the Rawalpindi district it becomes clear that the claim was genuine.
9. We see no merit in these submissions. The entitlement certificate could be issued only as a result of a proper claim form having been filed and duly verified by the appropriate Claims Officer, but there is no record of any such application or verification available in favour of the petitioner. In these circumstances, the Courts below were right in concluding that the entitlement certificate was bogus, in the sense that it was not related to a genuine verified claim. The mere presence of the signatures of an Officer of the Central Record Office on the entitlement certificate cannot make it genuine and valid in the absence of a verified claim which only could form the basis of the certificate. The findings of fact being sustainable on the basis of the available material, the High Court was right in refusing to interfere in the matter.
10. ' Accordingly, the petition fails and is hereby dismissed.