' The only point raised and falling for determination in this revisional application is as to whether the appellate Court, on the circumstances of this case had incorrectly declined to exercise review jurisdiction under section 114 read with Order XLVII, Rules 1 and 2, P.P.C.
2. The facts, necessary for the purpose of disposal of this Civil Revision are a few and are not in dispute. These are: that Roshan Din, herein applicant, sued for pre-empting a sale of suit land (described in the plaint) made through the registered sale-deed dated 24-2-1977. It was alleged therein that the applicant was co-sharer in joint Khata in which the suit land was situated and was brother of the vendor; that the applicant, thus, possessed superior right of pre-emption as against the vendee/defendant Fateh Din. Meanwhile Fateh Din made the sale of the suit land in favour of Bashir Hussain/second vendee. The suit was resisted. On 21-10-1984, the learned trial Judge decreed the suit ex parte. On appeal, the learned appellate Court set aside the decision of the Court below and remanded the case to the trial Court for decision afresh on merits. Pursuant to the order of remand, the learned trial Judge again decreed the suit vide decision dated 22-7-1986.
Feeling aggrieved from this decision Bashir Ahmad/second vendee preferred appeal which was accepted by the learned appellate Court vide decision dated 22-12-1986, the case was remitted by means of this order in following terms: "For the foregoing reasons the appeal is accepted, the case is remanded to the learned trial Court with the direction that it shall determine actual valuation of the plaint and get an amended plaint from the plaintiff and then shall proceed to decide the suit in accordance with law, after recording evidence to be produced by the parties, if any, in this behalf. Parties to suffer the costs. Present: Parties with counsel, they are directed to appear before the learned trial Court on 7-1-1987."
3. Pursuant to this order of remand, the learned first Court dismissed the suit on 19-4-1987 by holding that as no decree was passed in favour of applicant before 1-7-1986 as laid down in Said Kamal's case (PLD 1986 SC 360), the Court had no longer power to decree the suit. Against this order the applicant preferred an appeal which was dismissed by the appellate Court vide order dated 3-6-1987. Unrelenting applicant did not abandon his case. He filed a review application in the appellate Court on 28-6-1987/stating therein that the suit instituted by the applicant was decreed ex parte as back as on 21-10-1984 and, therefore, it was not governed by the rule laid down in Said Kamal's case. The learned appellate Court did not see eye to eye with the argument of the applicant and dismissed the review petition. This is how, this revisional application has come to this Court:
4. The learned counsel for the applicant in support of this application raised the following contentions: ' Firstly; that the learned Additional District Judge had not taken into consideration that the trial Judge had dismissed the suit on 19-41987; that the learned appellate Court dismissed the appeal on 3-6-1987, that the applicant had filed review application on 28-6-1987 within the period prescribed by Article 162 in Schedule to Limitation Act; that the Supreme Court rendered the decision in Sardar Ali v. Muhammad All (PLD 1988 SC 287) on 4-5-1987; that on 20-5-1990 the learned appellate Court was bound to render the decision in conformity with the rule laid down in Sardar Ali's case, supra. On these premises it was vehemently contended that the learned appellate Court was bound under the law to review the decision dated 3-6-1987 and give effect to the law enunciated by the Supreme Court in Sardar Ali's case. Reliance was placed on Muhammad Rafique v. Mst. Rashida Begum (1979 CLC 823) and Fatal Din v. Barkat Bibi (PLD 1978 Lah. 1016).
' Secondly; That the decision rendered by the learned appellate Court was on the face of it contrary to law and merits to be set aside in revisional jurisdiction.
5. On the contrary the learned counsel for the respondents, supported the impugned order by contending that the decision in Sardar Ali's case was rendered by the Supreme Court on 4-5-1988; that the learned trial Judge had dismissed the suit on 19-4-1987; that the appellate Court had dismissed the appeal on 3-6-1987. On the basis of these circumstances it was urged that Sardar Ali's case was rendered subsequently and the learned appellate Court was correct in giving effect to the rule laid down in Said Kamal's case (supra). According to the learned counsel the subsequent enunciation of law by the Supreme Court could not be treated as a ground within the framework of Order XLVII, Rule 1, C.P.C. Reliance was placed on Khan Muhammad v. Ghulam Rasool PLD 1987 Lah. 71 and Bashir Ahmad v. Pirara Khan (PLD 1992 SC 274).
6. From the above narration, as remarked in the first paragraph of this judgment, the only question arising for decision is whether the appellate Court was bound under Article 185 of the Constitution to give effect to rule laid down in Sardar Ali's case. The answer to this question is free from difficulty.
The power of review of the Courts is undoubtedly governed by section 114 read with Order XLVII, Rule 1, C.P.C. These provisions came up for consideration before a Division Bench of West Pakistan High Court in Muhammad Khan v. Pakistan (PLD 1958 Kar. 75). In this case Muhammad Khan petitioner was a permanent Head Constable. On 2-11-1953 he was charged-sheeted by the Superintendent of Police and was subsequently reverted to the rank of his previous post. Feeling aggrieved, he preferred an appeal to the Chief Commissioner, Karachi but in vain. He thereafter filed a writ petition which was dismissed by the Division Bench of the High Court of West Pakistan comprising of Sir George Constantine and Mr. Justice Bachal. On 25-4-1956, he lodged an application for review before the same Bench. After the survey of the Order XLVII, Rule 1, C.P.C. The Division Bench admitted the application to regular hearing and set aside its previous order in following words:- "After our order summarily dismissing the writ petition the judgment of the Supreme Court in Nurul Hassan v. The Federation of Pakistan PLD 1956 SC (Pak.) 331 was announced. For the purposes of this case it is sufficient to say that that case laid down that the provisions of Article 181 must prevail unless there is actual repugnancy in the particular law relating to the police. In this case there was no such repugnancy and therefore Mr. Nasiruddin argues that we should have set aside the order of the Inspector-General of Police on the ground that he had not given notice to show cause against the penalty proposed to be inflicted upon the petitioner.
' Mr. Raymond has argued that the judgment of the Supreme Court is an event which has supervened and should be taken into consideration. But we think it is too well-established a principle, namely, that Courts of law do not make law but merely declare the law, for us to consider that a judgment of the Supreme Court has altered the law. What has happened is that we proceeded on a mistaken view of the law and this appears to be apparent on the face of the record. It is true that our order is not what might be called a speaking order, but we think we can look at the contents of the petition in order to see whether we were justified in summarily dismissing the petition.
' We therefore set aside our order of dismissal and admit the main application to regular hearing Mr. Nasiruddin does not claim costs of this petition."
' The view taken in the above case was noted with approval by the Supreme Court in Faqir Muhammad v. Akbar Shah (PLD 1973 SC 110) wherein it was held:-- "Learned counsel for the respondent has conceded that failure to notice a judgment of the Privy Council or of the Supreme Court may amount to an error on the face of the record, because, such judgments declare the law for all concerned and all subordinate Courts are bound to follow that law. I see no difference, therefore, in principle between judgments of these Courts and the judgment of a Full Bench of a High Court. A judgment of a Full Bench also decides authoritatively for the High Court the point of law referred to it and, therefore, to that extent also declares the law with respect to that point. That declaration of law is binding on all other Benches of the High Court until set aside or reserved by another Full Bench of the same High Court or by a superior Court. Failure to notice such an authoritative decision would, therefore, in my opinion, clearly be an error apparent on the face of the record.
' In a Court consisting of only four Judges like the Peshawar seat of the former West Pakistan High Court, it is difficult to imagine how a decision of a Full Bench consisting of three of the learned Judges of that High Court remained unknown to the fourth learned Judge. I am not, therefore, prepared to accept that because the judgment of the Full Bench was not reported up to the time the judgment sought to be reviewed was delivered, the learned Judge concerned was not aware of it and, therefore, not bound to take any-notice of it. The judgment of the Full Bench, so far as the Peshawar Seat of the High Court was concerned, was not only an authoritative decision but also a well known decision, which should have been followed.
' We are, therefore, unable to agree with the learned Single Judge that the review petition was not maintainable. Nevertheless we must also point out that the granting of a review is still in the discretion of the Court. It is not bound to grant a review even where adequate grounds exist but the discretion must, as in the case of all judicial discretions, be exercised upon sound judicial principles."
' This view was reiterated by the Supreme Court in Arif Shah v. Abdul Hakeem Qureshi (PLD 1991 SC 905). His Lordship Mr. Justice Ajmal Mian, speaking for the Bench, said:- "We are inclined to take the view that if a subordinate Court ignores a judgment of a Superior Court to which it Is subordinate, on a. Point of law and takes a contrary view, it may furnish a ground for review of the decre/order. However, it will be too dangerous and too broad a proposition to lay down that every failure on the part of a subordinate Court, to take notice of a judgment of a superior Court, to which it is subordinate, will furnish a ground to review a decree/order though the relevant judgment of the superior Court was not brought to its notice. It is true that it is the duty of the Court itself to apply the correct law and a party is not bound to engage a counsel, as has been held by this Court in the case of Haji Abdullah Khan and others v. Nisar Muhammad Khan and others PLD 1965 SC 690, but a subordinate Court in view of the daily heavy roster is not expected to take upon itself the research work on the case-law. However, it is supposed to know or to acquire knowledge of the basic principles of law involved in the case before it for adjudication before rendering its judgment thereupon. In the present case, the proposition of law pronounced by the learned trial Court, while declining the relief of specific performance of the agreement quoted thereinabove, is contrary to the law enunciated by the superior Courts inter alia in the cases referred to hereinabove in para. 11 and founded on Explanation to section 12 of the Specific Relief Act read with the order relevant provisions thereof. The learned trial Court did not record any finding of fact in favour of the respondent which could have justified declining of specific performance of the agreement."
7. The survey of the case-law on the scope of above provisions will not be complete' without making reference to Hashim Khan's case which was decided by the Division Bench of this Court. In this case the applicant sued for preemption on the grounds of being collateral; that the suit was decreed by the first Court vide decision dated 4-6-1983. The appeal by the vendee succeeded before the first appellate Court on 29-5-1987. The pre-emptor's revision was dismissed on the basis of rule laid down in Said Kamal's case. The pre-emptor filed an application for review on 28-8-1988 within the prescribed period of limitation. The Division Bench of this Court accepted the review petition in view of rule laid down in Sardar Ali's case and decreed the suit.
8. From the foregoing examination I have no difficulty in holding that if Subordinate Court overlooks/ignores/does not follow the enunciation of law made by the superior judiciary, it is a good ground for review if the review application is brought to that Court within the prescribed period of time. A Although no hard and fast rule can be prescribed for the purpose of review jurisdiction, the Court had to exercise its jurisdiction upon the facts and circumstances of each case; yet it goes without saying that Subordinate Courts are bound to follow the enunciation of law made by the Supreme Court under Article 185 of the Constitution of Pakistan (1973).
9. Applying this principle to the facts and circumstances of this case it is crystal clear that in Said Kamal's case the question raised was "whether section 15 of Punjab Pre-emption Act and sub-para. (3)(d) of paragraph 25 of M.L.R. 115 were repugnant to Injunction of Islam". In the aforesaid precedent case the Shariat Appellate Bench of Supreme Court came to the conclusion that section 15 of Punjab Pre-emption Act, 1913 and sub-para (3)(d) of paragraph 25 of M.L.R. 115 were repugnant to Injunctions of Islam. The effect of Said Kamal's case was considered in Sardar Ali's case wherein it was held that any suit instituted under the provisions of Punjab Pre-emption Act, 1913 was decreed before the prescribed date in Said Kamal case, the preemptoi /decree-holder, was entitled to defend the decree. This being legal position the decision of learned trial Judge dated 19-4-1987 and the decision of learned appellate Court dated 3-6-1987 are clearly illegal, being in defiance of rule laid down in Sardar Ali's case, and the learned appellate Court was bound to decide the appeals as well as the review application on the touchstone laid down in Sardar Ali's case. In these circumstances I have no option but to accept this Revision petition.
10. In the light of foregoing discussion, this revision application is accepted, the judgment and decree passed by Malik Muhammad Akram, Civil Judge-II Class T.T. Singh dated 19-4-1987, judgment and decree of affirmance passed by Mr. Siddique Javed Chaudhary, Additional District Judge, T.T. Singh dated 3-6-1987 are hereby set aside. The order passed by Mr. Mujahid Hussain, Additional District Judge, T.T. Singh dated 20-5-1990/rejecting the review application, is also hereby set aside. Result of above is, that the order of remand passed by Mr. Siddique Javed Chaudhary, Additional District Judge, dated 22-12-1986 remains in field. Pursuant to above, the case is remanded to the learned Senior Civil Judge, T.T. Singh who is directed to decide the suit afresh after hearing the parties withim the parametre of order of remand dated 22-12-1986. There shall be no order as to costs.