1. ' SALEEM AKHTAR, J.---These appeals will be disposed of by this judgment which arise from the impugned judgments passed by the learned Judge in Chamber of the Lahore High Court.
2. ' The facts are that one Dawood Khan predecessor-in-interest of the respondents Nos.3 to 6 was a displaced person from India. His claim form for the urban agricultural land, abandoned by him in India, had been verified for 7,763 produce index units. Out of this claim 6,926 produce index units had been adjusted against the allotment of land at different places and the remaining 837 produce index units were got transferred to Bahawalpur after his death by his legal heirs, respondents Nos.3 to 6, through an entitlement certificate issued by the Deputy Commissioner/Additional Settlement Commissioner (Lands), Rahimyar Khan on 12-11-1970.
3. While the allotment of the land in dispute in favour of respondents Nos.3 to 6 against their said 837 unsatisfied produce index units was under process, respondent No,2 filed an application before the Additional Settlement Commissioner, Bahawalpur on 4-6-1971 stating therein that he had a' preferential right although his claim was yet to be verified and that the proposed allottees were bogus claimants. The Additional Settlement Commissioner by his order dated 22-9-1971 allowed the respondent No,2 to choose an area of 4 Kanals equivalent to his 42 produce index units and also directed the office to seek verification from the Central Record Room regarding the claim of Dawood Khan.
4. ' The Central Record Room reported that the claim of Dawood Khan had been verified for 7,763 produce index units and sent to Rahimyar Khan and that the same has not been ccancelled.
5. Thereafter the land in dispute was confirmed in favour of respondents Nos.3 to 6 on 13-10-1971.
6. Respondent No,2 filed an appeal before the Settlement Commissioner which was allowed on 8-12- 1971 remanding the case with the direction to decide afresh, after hearing respondent No,2 and scrutinising the claim of Dawood Khan. Respondent No,2 also filed an application before the Additional Settlement Commissioner on 15-2-1974 for the cancellation of the allotment made against the claim of Dawood Khan alleging that his claim was bogus. This application was treated as an application under section 10/11 of the Land Settlement Act, and a report was called from the Central Record Room for the second time. In this report it was stated that in the Directory the names of village Jawaharpur and Jaharer exist at Serial Nos.278 and 279. In another report obtained by respondent No,2 from the Central Record Room it was stated that the matter was pending in the High Court regarding the claims of these villages.
7. ' The appellants in both the appeals having no knowledge of the pendency of the case, purchased the land in dispute from respondents Nos. 3 to 6 for valuable consideration through registered sale-deeds dated 7-4-1980. Without serving any notice on respondents Nos. 3 to 6 through an ex parte order, dated 30-9-1980 respondent No,1 decided the case against the allottees and cancelled the confirmation of land mainly on the ground that the Jawaharpur and Jaharer Villages were included in the new cantonment vide Indian Gazette Notification dated 15-5-1915 and as such, according to respondent No,1, the question of landed property owned by Dawood Khan in these villages did not arise. It was further observed that according to the report of the Central Record Room the record of the property abandoned by Dawood Khan was not received from India. It was also held that these two villages named above were not entered in Directory at Serial Nos. 278 and 279.
8. ' The appellants filed writ petition in the High Court which was dismissed by the impugned judgment.
9. Leave was granted to consider the contention whether the appellant being bona fide purchaser for value was not heard and whether the cancellation of allotment of Dawood Khan on the ground that it was bogus is not correct "because verification of claims, of persons from the same states notwithstanding that the record from India had not been received were upheld by the Settlement Commissioner and the High Court".
10. ' Mr. Malik Talib Hussain Awan, the learned counsel for the appellants contended that the learned Judge in Chamber as well as respondent No,1 did not take into consideration the judgment passed by the High Court in Petition No,444 of 1978 whereby the claim of Dawood Khan was held to be genuine and proper. A copy of the judgment passed in Constitution Petition No,444-R of 1978 has been placed on record. We had called for the file of W.P. 444-R/1978 from the High Court but it was not made available. Only a file relating to the review application was produced but it did not contain the copy of the judgment. The respondents have however not denied the existence of the judgment. In this petition the order passed by the Settlement Commissioner and Claims Commissioner, Lahore was challenged. The Additional Deputy Commissioner/Settlement Commissioner had passed the order on an application for review of order passed by the Authorities concerned verifying the claims of 33 persons who had migrated from Delhi India. The allegation was that the estate alleged to have been left by the aforestated claimants was not in existence at the time when Pakistan came into being as it had been taken over by the Indian Government much before the partition of India for the purpose of construction of Palam Airport as well as other establishments. A list of these 33 persons is given in the order which is at page 17 of the Paper Book of Civil Appeal No,715 of 1990. Dawood Khan son of Muhammad Umar is listed at Sr.
11. No,11. It is thus clear that the claim verified in the name of Dawood Khan was subjected to scrutiny and was reviewed by the Settlement/Claims Commissioner, Punjab. After discussing the entire history of the case and referring to various relevant provisions of law it was observed as follows: "In the light of what is stated above, I am of the conclusive opinion that the original verification orders passed by the Claims Officers are final and cannot now be interfered with as the respondents have not committed any fraud or misrepresentation in obtaining the allotments on the basis of the verification order and entitlement certificate issued to them by the Central Record Office. The claims verification orders originally passed by the Claims Officer have attained finality.
12. No interference with these can be made now, and, therefore, the allotments of land secured on the basis of their entitlement certificate hold good."
13. ' As stated earlier this order was challenged without any success. The learned Judge of the High Court while dismissing Writ Petition No,444-R of 1978 observed as follows:--- "In the present case it is admitted on record that the application for reviewing the verification order passed by the Claim authorities concerned was made on 24-4-1972, much after the target date being 31-3-1965. As such, in our view the said application was not even entertainable not to speak of having been dealt with by the Claims Commissioner.
14. ' The learned counsel for the contesting respondents have vehemently argued that the observations with regard to obtaining allotment of land on the basis of the aforesaid verified claims have been made by the Claim Commissioner only in context of the verifying orders, therefore, they being quite relevant no exception can be taken in relation thereto. We don't want to make any specific observation in that behalf. The fact, however, remains that the application Annexure `A' was made by the petitioner challenging the verification of the claims of the aforesaid 33 persons on the ground of fraud and misrepresentation. Since the said application was not competent, therefore, the petitioner could not challenge the aforesaid order by invoking the writ jurisdiction. It cannot be denied that even in the case of genuine claims an allotment can be obtained fraudulently or through misrepresentation, since the matter in the present. Case pertains only to verification of claims, therefore no exception can be taken to the order passed by the Claims Commissioner."
15. It is thus clear that after the claim had been verified, reviewed by the Claims/Settlement Authorities and upheld by the High Court there could be no ground or justification for reopening the case which would vritually mean setting aside the judgment passed by the High Court. In the impugned judgment while referring to the judgment of the High Court passed in Writ Petition No,444-R of 1978 it was observed that this judgment did not relate to the present case. We have examined the judgment with reference to the order passed by the Settlement Commissioner and with respect disagree with this observation.
16. ' Considering the facts and circumstances of the case and further as we are inclined to set aside the impugned judgment, we condone the delay in filing CA. No,716 of 1990. We allow both the appeals set aside the impugned judgments and order, dated 30th September, 1990 passed by the Additional Settlement Commissioner, the respondent No,1 with no order as to costs.