The brief facts leading to the present criminal original are that in Civil Miscellaneous No.258 of 1979/BWP in the connected Civil Revision No.180 of 1978/BWP, the status quo was ordered to be maintained till 24-11-1979, vide order, dated 21-10-1979. And that, thereafter, the civil revision petition in question was admitted to regular hearing and notice issued to the respondent's vide order, dated 24-11-1979 but there was no explicit order, extending the order for the maintenance of the status quo, as stated above. The said civil revision petition came up for hearing on various dates thereafter but even on the said dates of hearing there is no order in respect of the extension of the status quo.
2. However, the petitioner filed the present criminal original against the respondents on 26-9-1989 and on 9-10-1989 notice to the respondents was issued to show cause why they should not be punished under the Contempt of Court Act, 1976 and why the shops constructed in violation of this Court's order may not be demolished, by my learned brother Muhammad Sharif, J. (as he then was).
3. On 26-5-1991, the case was adjourned on the request of the learned counsel for the petitioner with the direction that he shall address the Court on the point whether or not the stay order in question dated 21-10-1979 ordering the maintenance of status quo till 24-11-1979 was explicitly or implicitly extended thereafter.
4. The learned counsel for the petitioner has been heard at length on the point stated above. The learned counsel has placed reliance upon Iftikhar Ali v. Javid Dastgir Mirza and 6 others PLD 1975 Lah. 126 and Malik Shah Abdul Waheed v. Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and 4 others 1989 CLC
440. However, the precedents relied upon are of no help to the present petitioner, as they deal with the infringement of the interim orders that were in existence and very much alive at the time of their violation by the respondents therein. In the present case, the order for the maintenance of the status quo was only uptill 24-i1-1979 and as it was not extended thereafter, therefore, it had ceased to be effective, thereafter. Therefore, the violation alleged herein is not a violation of any order passed by this Court in the connected civil revision petition. It goes without saying that if the Court wanted to extend the interim; order for the maintenance of the status quo, stated above, a conscious order, explicitly stating so, would have been passed by the Court.
5. Obviously, the interim order passed for a limited period which was not extended, stood vacated by afflux of time. In this respect strength is sought from Muzaffar Ali Khan v. Sindh Cooperative Housing Authority and 2 others 1985 CLC 1995, wherein the learned D.B. Had held that the status quo order passed for a limited period stood vacated if not extended, and the petition for contempt therein was dismissed.
6. In view of what has been stated above, the notice issued herein is hereby discharged and the present criminal original is hereby dismissed.
7. However, anything said herein shall not prejudice the case of the parties in respect of the disputed property or in respect of any relief tenable to any one of the parties in accordance with law, in respect of the complaint raised herein.