1. ' MUHAMMAD AFZAL ZULLAH, C.J.---Leave to appeal was granted in this appeal as follows:-- "This is a petition for leave to appeal by the defendants in a suit for specific performance, wherein the plaint was rejected by the trial Court, with which the First Appellate Court did not interfere, but the High Court intervened in revision and remanded the case to the trial Court for disposal on merits.
2. ' The dispute relates to the land which was held by the petitioners' predecessor-in-interest, namely, Khushi Muhammad, under Well Sinking Scheme, who according to the respondents entered into an agreement with them for its sale in their favour against consideration of Rs,36,000 which he allegedly received in full, passed on the possession to them and promised to transfer the land on grant of proprietary rights under the Punjab Colonization of Government Lands Act, 1912.
3. ' It is stated that before the conferment of such rights on him he died. The suit was, therefore, instituted against his successors-in-interest i.e, the petitioners, who had obtained proprietary rights on 21-3-1987. They denied the agreement and asserted that the respondents occupied the land as tenants under them.
4. ' The reasons which weighed with the trial Court and the First Appellate Court to non-suit the respondents were that in their estimation the agreement was violative of section 19 of the Act, and the provisions of the Scheme under which the land could not be alienated within 5 years of execution of the deed of conveyance in favour of the tenant, without the approval of the Government and that such permission was not obtained.
5. ' The High Court, however, referred to Rajab Ali v. Mst. Aisha and others 1989 SCMR 135 to hold that: ' The allottee who was the executant of such an agreement could not avail of the provisions of section 20 of the Scheme as well as section 19 of the Colonization of Government Lands Act, which could only be availed of by the granter of the land. In this view of the matter the respondents could not avail of the said provisions of law.
6. ' In support of this petition, it has been urged that the plaint is not founded on any written agreement and the High Court failed to notice that the respondents merely relied on an inchoate oral agreement and that the decision in Rajab Ali's case was not attracted to the case in hand.
7. ' The contention raised by the learned counsel and the allied issues arising in this case require examination."
8. ' Learned counsel for the appellants vehemently argued that except for one judgment of this Court in the related cases there was never an agreement in writing. That exceptional case, he in fairness himself cited, is Muhammad Iqbal v. Mirza Muhammad Hussain PLD 1986 SC 70.
9. ' While elaborating the first point he contended with referring to section 24 of the Colonization of Government Lands Act, read with section 19 thereof, that the intention of the law-maker was not to recognize the oral agreements. Otherwise in order to by-pass the legal bar contained in section 19 it would have been very easy for the parties to have denied the very existence of the agreement.
10. The argument is too simplistic. If a person can deny an oral agreement, there is nothing to prevent him from denying a written one or to say the least pleading fraud. Learned counsel also is not right in contending that there has never been any other case of oral agreement in the context of the present controversy. The Court librarian has pointed out one other at least. Be that as it may, the learned counsel for the appellants further contended that in the exceptional case of Muhammad Iqbal the reliance by this Court was placed on another case which related to a written agreement.
11. This, according to him strengthened his argument that the benefit if at all of an agreement in a case like the present one, vis-a-vis, section 19, can be granted only when the agreement is in writing. When we told him that in the case cited by him; namely, of Muhammad Iqbal the benefit was granted notwithstanding the fact that it was an oral agreement and that it should be considered as further extension of the rule laid down by this Court in the earlier judgments regarding the interpretation of section 19, learned counsel after some insistence could not pursue the matter any further. He, however, helped the Court in giving almost all of Supreme Court cases on the point. And in order to acknowledge his labour particularly in trying to discover a case of oral agreement, even if it would go against him, we hereunder notice all the cases cited by him and/or taken out by Court Library Assistant;--
(1) Haji Abdullah Khan v. Nisar Muhammad Khan PLD 1965 SC 690,
(2) Ghulam Rasul v. Muhammad Anwar 1969 SCMR 254,
(3) Abdul Aziz v. Sadiq Muhammad 1970 SCM R 569,
(4) Hakim All v. Atta Muhammad 1981 SCMR 993,
(5) Muhammad Iqbal v. Mirza Muhammad Hussain PLD 1986 SC 70,
(6) Mst. Begum Bibi v. Abdul Sattar 1987 SCMR 1,
(7) Muhammad Ramzan v. Ghulam and others 1988 SCMR 590,
(8) Wahid Bakhsh v. Ghulam Ahmad 1989 SCMR 134,
(9) Akhtar All v. Muhammad Hanif 1989 SCMR 604,
(10) Taj Din v. Kalsoom Bibi 1989 SCMR 1229 and
(11) Muhammad Afzal v. Rehmat Ali 1991 SCMR 1785.
(12) In the conclusion, however, learned counsel admitted that in this case when the (alleged) agreement was entered into. The proprietary rights had not been granted to the allottee/grantee, Thcy were subsequently granted to his successors, Otherwise too, he was unable to contest the proposition that the bar in section 19 is against the alienation and not against the agreement and that being so the agreement could be enforced through specific performance after the grant of proprietary rights and this is what has happened in this case.
12. ' Learned counsel then contended that the respondents' suit was time barred and the same should have been dismissed accordingly. When told that leave to appeal was not granted on this issue he could not press the same any further.
13. ' In the light of the foregoing discussion we find no force in this appeal and the same is dismissed with no order as to costs.