1. ' This and the connected Revision Application call into question the concurrent judgments and decrees of the Courts below dismissing the two successive suits of the applicant consolidated, heard and disposed of through a common judgment. These were respectively Suits Nos. 3162/78 (instituted on 4-11-1978 and renumbered as 1182 of 1982) and 3042/79 (instituted on 5-8-1979 and renumbered as 1822 of 1985), the first being a suit for specific performance against respondent Muhammad Rafique Qureshi and the other, one for Declaration and Permanent Injunction also joining the Karachi Development Authority as a co-defendant with the referred Muhammad Rafique Qureshi.
2. ' Brief facts pertaining to the claim of the applicant-plaintiff in either suit include averments to the effect that he was in possession of the disputed plot since 1965, which, in turn, was purchased by respondent-defendant, Muhammad Rafique Qureshi, in an open auction from the KDA in 1966.
3. Following upon such auction the said Muhammad Rafique Qureshi, allegedly, offered to sell the plot in question to the applicant-plaintiff for a consideration of Rs, 4,000 plus unpaid 75% of the plot value. In such behalf an Agreement of Sale dated 12-02-1977, admittedly after eleven years of the auction, was executed (Exh. 5/1) and constructions on the plot were allegedly raised in due course.
4. Later, however, upon the respondent-defendant resiling from the contract, through the agency of the Karachi Development Authority, the applicant-plaintiff was attempted to be dispossessed. The Agreement of Sale gave rise to the suit for specific performance and the threatened dispossession to the subsequent suit for declaration and permanent injunction. In defence, the alleged Agreement was denied as a forged document. It was also stated that there were no constructions on the said plot, but the plaintiff never made any attempt to prove the existence of such constructions. As to prof of the disputed document itself, the plaintiff examined only himself, the two attesting witnesses and the Notary Public, which evidence, too lacked consistency, and was even faulty. Thus on the most material question as to the identity of the main executants the Notary Public admitted that the respondent-defendant was never identified to him nor was he able to identify the marginal witnesses. While the plaintiff did not make any attempt to prove the disputed signature, through any recognized mode of proof, the learned trial Judge, on her part, made a comparison of her own with the defendant's admitted signatures on his N.I.C. And a power of attorney on the Court record, concluding that the disputed and the admitted signatures did not tally. In such circumstances, as adverted to above, the two Courts below have concurrently dismissed the plaintiffs suits.
5. ' Before me, in, these Civil Revisions, Mr. A.F.M. Mokarim, relying on Nadir Ali v. Muhammad Addam Khan 1985 CLC 373, has urged that the belated and unilateral examination of the disputed signatures with those obtaining on the record by the learned trial Court Judge, without providing adequate opportunity of hearing to the contestants, was not only irregular but even illegal, being violative of the principles of Natural Justice. Sh. Mir Muhammad, on his part, refers to Zaffaruddin v.
6. Syed Hyder, 1986 CLC 2613, which apparently softening the rule spelled out in the case of Nadir Ali, lays down that objections to the procedure adopted by the trial Court in itself making the comparison ought, initially, to be taken in such Court. However, in given circumstances, it may well be that the comparison comes to be made by the trial Judge in a manner whereby none of the parties becomes wiser to it, leaving little room for anyone to object. To such cases, for obvious reasons, the ratio in Re Zafaruddin would not apply. Still, in the instant case, because the applicant- plaintiff made no attempt to seek a comparison, the learned Judge, in her anxiety to do complete justice, may have had to act in somewhat enforced circumstances. Even so, if the outcome of such a unilateral comparison was all the adverse material, in the case, the exercise, without hearing the parties, would be unsustainable.
7. ' However, quite apart from the foregoing, the contention of Mr. A.F.M. Mokarim, to be precise, is that because the applicant-plaintiff had discharged his burden to prove the questioned document, such burden had shifted to defendant-respondent, Muhammad Risque Qureshi, to prove that the document did not bear his signature. In the first place, it is far from correct that the applicant- plaintiff had proved the execution of the disputed document by his adversary. If in a Court of law all that be required to prove a document was the execution thereof by one of the parties thereto (claiming under the document) and of the attesting witnesses, each in chorus, saying that the adversary had also executed it, the rule of judiciously proving a writing or signature would fall to be abruptly thrown over-board, for any number of documents can be proved in this way, without convincingly proving the disputed signatures or the handwriting. This, therefore, is no mode of proof of a questioned document. According to the rules of evidence, applicable in this country, a signature or writing may be proved by adducing the evidence of a person or persons conversant or acquainted with such signature or writing (Article 61, Qanun-e-Shahadat) or by examination at the level of expert(s) of the disputed signature(s)/writing in comparison with the admitted ones (Article 59, Qanun-e-Shahadat) or eves by like comparison at the level of the Court itself (Article 84, Qanun-e-Shahadat). These are standard modes of proof. Obviously*, in view of the foregoing, since the applicant-plaintiff had failed to prove the execution of the disputed document the burden to rebut, if any, had not shifted and the suits should have failed on that score alone. No comparison of signatures, at any level, therefore, seems to have become requisite.
8. ' As against this, what else has the plaintiff proved? He said that he was in possession since 1965, apparently under the defendant and yet the defendant himself acquired rights in the plot later, that is in 1966, the disputed agreement, curiously, having had to wait another eleven years to come about in 1977. The plaintiff maintained that he raised constructions on the plot, which was denied.
9. This was not proved. The agreement spoke of the plaintiff being liable to pay the balance dues of 75% on the plot yet no such dues were ever paid by him. The remaining aspects have already been treated in the trial and appellate Courts.
10. ' In the foregoing circumstances, I see no reason to interfere with the aforesaid concurrent findings.
11. Dismissed.
2. In view of the above the application at S.No, 2 is also dismissed.