' Sultan Muhammad petitioner sought to pre-empt the sale of suit land sold by respondent No,4 in favour of respondents Nos.1 to 3, witnessed by sale mutation No,29 of village Balawal, sanctioned on 17-8-1983, on the ground of his co-ownership in the suit land, collateralship with the vendor and ownership in the estate. Respondents Nos.1 to 3 resisted the suit and in their written statement they hinted at the institution and pendency of a suit by respondent No,5, the minor son of the vendor, against them. Ultimately it transpired that the suit filed by respondent No, 5 had been collusively decreed on 14-124985, pursuant to which the land was mutated back in favour of respondent No,4.
The petitioner amended the plaint, added respondents Nos.4 and 5 and challenged the declaratory decree. Eventually the pre-emption suit of the petitioner was decreed on 29-2-1988 on the payment of Rs,4,000 as pre-emption money. Against this decree, respondent Nos.1 to 3 and 5 both filed their respective appeals and the learned Additional District Judge, vide his judgment dated 184-1989, accepting both the appeals, set aside the pre-emption decree of the petitioner and dismissed the suit.
2. Against this judgment and decree the petitioner filed the present revision in the office on 30-4- 1989. It was returned to the learned counsel for the petitioner on 17-5-1989 by the Deputy Registrar (Judicial) for the removal of certain objections within three days but the learned counsel refiled it on 21-1-1990 after the removal of objections. On 13-3-1990 when the revision petition was placed before this Court for the first time for motion hearing, it was noticed that the objection were removed by the learned counsel for the petitioner after a very long period than the one specified by the Office and he was called upon to address arguments on the maintainability of the revision petition.
3. The learned counsel submits that due to certain things, which were to be complied with by his client, he could not remove the objections within the period of three days as specified by the Deputy Registrar (Judicial), but in the absence of High Court Rules indicating consequence for non-compliance of the office order, no adverse order can be passed against the petitioner by this Court. He further contends that for filing a revision petition against the order no period of limitation is prescribed and the delay in refiling it, after the removal of the objections, is excusable. He, however, expresses his inability to cite any case-law.
4. No doubt, no period of limitation is prescribed for filing a revision petition against a revisable order but ordinarily a period of three months is considered to be a reasonable period for this purpose. The revision was admittedly filed in the office within a period of three months but it was returned A to the learned counsel for the removal of certain objections within the specified period of three days. He refiled it after eight months. If certain things were to be done by his client, then those things should have been done before filing the revision when the initial period of three months was available to him. In fact, there is not much substance in this contention. The nature of objections to be removed was such that they concerned more with the counsel and his clerk than the client himself.
5. Under Office Order No,413, dated 9-10-1969, issued by the Chief Justice and Judges read with rule 9 of Chapter 1-A (a), Vol. V of High Court Rules and Orders, Deputy Registrar (Judi.) was fully competent to return the revision petition to the learned counsel for the petitioner for the removal of certain objections raised by him within the time specified by him. The said rule, as contended by the learned counsel, does not provide for any legal consequence if the directions of the Deputy Registrar (Judi.) are not complied with within the time specified by him but it does not mean that the learned counsel could refile the revision at any time at his discretion, as he did in this case after the lapse of about eight months instead of three days. In Ghulam Hussain v. Bahadur (PLD 1954 Lahore 361), an authority having some bearing on the case in hand, it was held that if the petition, after the removal of objections was refiled within the time specified by the Deputy Registrar, it would be deemed to have been filed within the period of limitation prescribed for that petition even if the same had meanwhile expired, but if it was refiled after the time specified by him for the removal of objections, then it had become time-barred and had to be dismissed on that account.
6. In the instant case, no doubt, no period of limitation for filing it stood prescribed but the petitioner was supposed to file it within the conventional period of three months and initially he did it within that period. However, while re-filing, after the removal of certain objections, the counsel signified extreme indifference or negligence as he did so after about eight months, without any plausible explanation for this inordinate delay. Obviously the element of reasonableness is missing in this case and principle of laches has inevitably crept in. The revision petition is, therefore, dismissed in limine on account of limitation besides laches on the part of the petitioner's counsel.