The petitioners have challenged by this writ petition all the orders passed at different stages by the Authorities about the consolidation of their lands in village Mudke Dhariwal, Tehsil Kasur, District Lahore.
2. The consolidation scheme of this village was confirmed by the Collector on the 29th September 1967, under section 10(4) of the West Pakistan Consolidation of Holdings Ordinance, 1960. The reference to the Collector became necessary under section 10 because objections were raised by some land owners. Abdul Jabbar petitioner had also raised objections regarding Khata No. 422 of the petitioners before the Assistant Consolidation, Officer.
3. It appears from the order of the Collector that objections were taken before him about the wrong classification of the area. It was urged before him on behalf of the objectors including Abdul Jabbar that the original classification which was formulated on the 30th April 1965, had been changed by the A. C. O. Arbitrarily without consulting and without even the knowledge of the Members of the Advisory Committee. This argument was found factually incorrect. It was held that these changes had been made on the 22nd May 1965, with the express consent of some of the land owners,, specially Abdul Jabbar petitioner who was also a Member of the Advisory Committee. The Collector also got the classification verified through the A. C. O. And found that no change in it was called for. Abdul Jabbar who had raised the objection about the petitioners' Khata thereafter agreed before the Collector to accept the scheme and signed a statement to that effect. The consolidation scheme was therefore confirmed by that authority.
4. The petitioners challenged this order of confirmation by an appeal; before the Additional Commissioner (Consolidation) who exercised powers of the Commissioner under the West Pakistan Consolidation of Holdings Ordinance, 1960. The main point urged in their appeal related to the wrong classification resulting in loss to the petitioners. According to the petitioners the areas of low quality belonging to others had been upgraded while the lands of superior quality belonging to them had been downgraded as II Class, III Class and IV Class. It was also urged that they had six plots prior to consolidation and the same number had been retained after consolidation although an effort should have been made to reduce the number of plots. The petitioners also contended before the Commissioner that of their area had been given to Hari Khan and Umrao Khan.
5. The Commissioner, however, held that the petitioners had their original area scattered in 47 plots which had been reduced in consolidation to only six plots. He also found that the principle adopted in consolidating the petitioners' land was that the major area was kept intact. As such the blocks were as perfect as possible. The Commissioner does not appear to have been impressed by the argument about the wrong classification. He held that some area of the petitioners had been given to Hari Khan but he did not find it possible to make any adjustment since Hari Khan was not impleaded as a party before him. The Commissioner, however, made some minor adjustments to satisfy the petitioners. Copy of his order dated the 28th March 1968 is Annexure `D'.
6. The appeal filed by the petitioners before the Commissioner was directed against 8 respondents only. They now filed a revision petition against the appellate order in which they impleaded 95 persons as respondents and raised a number of pleas which do not appear to have been raised before either the Collector or the Commissioner. They also submitted an applica--tion for transfer of the revision petition from Mr. S. Afzal Agha, Member (Consolidation) Board of Revenue, on the ground that Liaquat Hayat Khan who had cordial relations with the Member had threatened them that he would see that the petitioners' revision petition was decided against them. This application was placed before Mr. S. Afzal Agha, who dismissed it on the ground that Mr. Liaquat Hayat Khan was neither a party in the case nor was related to 95 odd respondents in any degree. He held that the conten--tion that Liaquat Hayat Khan was on inimical terms with the petitioners was, therefore, irrelevant. Copy of this order dated the 27th August 1968, has been placed on record as Annexure 'G'.
7. The revision petition filed by the petitioners was dismissed by the same learned Member, Board of Revenue, on the 4th October 1968. The main points raised before him were also about wrong classification and adjustments of the petitioners' Khata by excluding some area originally held by them from their allotment and by giving to them an area of equal value from the area initially held by others. The learned Member, Board of Revenue, held that the petitioners' entire holding of 500 Acres could not be expected to be of good quality and could not be consolidated in one joint block on re-distribution. He agreed that some of the defects pointed out regarding adjustment were reasonable but be found himself unable, keeping in view the overall interest of consolidation, to disturb the scheme already confirmed. The petitioners had prayed to the Member Board of Revenue for making arrangement for village paths to be laid down. The Collector was directed to take appropriate action in this regard.
8. The learned counsel for the petitioners raised the following conten--tions before me
(a) The Member, Board of Revenue bad no jurisdiction to deal with or dismiss the transfer application and the same should have been decided by the full Board.
(b) There are two broad divisions of the land in the village. One is across Rohi Nala which is inferior.
The Hater supplied to this land is precarious as it is served by a minor. The other land is served by the Canal directly. According to the preliminary scheme, similar area was to be given across kohi Nala but the petitioners had been given 243 kanals at that spot which is in excess of their holding there. Similarly in lieu of for Khasra Numbers which originally were riverain, for other Khasra Numbers were given which abutted the Rohi Nala and are inundated.
(c) The boundary line of for adjacent villages was found defective. If this defect is removed two of the Khasra Numbers will be in danger of going to land owners of those other villages.
(d) Khasra No. 3826 of the petitioners' Abadi has been taken away.
(e) The area taken for common purposes has been given to the District Council.
(f) Inferior land of other persons consisting of 28 Khasra Numbers which is excluded from the commanded area of the canal has been classified as Class I.
(g) Fourteen acres of land of Muhammad Hanif and Muhammad Siddique is without canal water but it has been classified as Class I.
(h) Five hundred acres of land has been given to Muhammad Hanif and Muhammad Siddique in one block and this allotment was made at the cost of the petitioners.
(j) Seventeen acres of the petitioners' land was given to Muhammad Siddique against 4 acres of land of Barkate etc., which was given across Rohi Nala.
(k) Six acres of petitioners' land was given to Umrao Khan and 4 acres to Chhotoo whereby the water-course of the petitioners' tube-well gets blocked.
(l) Five Khasra Numbers of the petitioners near Abadi Deh have been given to Munshi.
(m) Some area around the petitioners' Khasra Numbers near the Abadi Deh were given to others and 4 of the Khasra Numbers of the petitioners near school which were valuable were given to others as falling in Class-III. Out of the common land some area was given to Muhammad Siddique for extension of Abadi.
(n) Khasra No. 2699 is a public path and out of it an area of 5 kanals, 12 marlas has been made a part of the petitioners' proprietary Khata. Path to village Manah Singh Wala was continuous but it is now 6 acres distant from that village.
9. It will be seen that some of the points taken by the learned counsel relate to wrong classification of the area. This point cannot be considered since classification was changed with the consent of Abdul Jabbar petitions who represented the other petitioners and other land owners. Not only this, even the appeal and the revision petition of the petitioners were not competent since it is clear from the order of the Collector that the Collector had posse the confirmation order after obtaining the assent of Abdul Jabbar to the attestation of Khata No. 422 of the petitioners. Abdul Jabbar represented the petitioners before the Collector and they are bound by his statement. 1 also agree with the argument of the learned counsel for the respondents that the petitioners have been improving upon the number of their complaints against the consolidation scheme with each step taken by them before the Collector, the Commissioner or the Board of Revenue. For this reason the number of the respondents has also kept steadily rising. There were 8 respondents in appeal and 95 before the Board of Revenue. The number of respondents other than those whose orders are impugned in this writ petition has now gone upto 103. Naturally these ever-rising complaints and grievances could not have been redressed even by the Board of Revenue. Taken by the learned counsel before me area covered by the principle laid down by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Ghulam Qadir v. Member Board of Revenue West Pakistan1970SCMR292. It was held there that the adjustment of areas is consolidation is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Consolidation)
Authorities and their orders on this score cannot be interfered with exercise of writ jurisdiction. It was also held that the point as to which Khasra Number ought to be given to one party or the other is within the exclusive competence of the Consolidation Authorities. Confronted with the authority, the learned counsel argued that his objections at least regarding the areas given to the petitioners in the vicinity of Rohi Nala raised a point pertaining to title and not merely to adjustment. He argued that according to the preliminary scheme area equal to the area owned by the petitioners across Robi Nala ought to have been given to them at that site. There was no justification to give them an area amounting to 243 kanals in excess of their holding. , No such provision in the preliminary scheme was shown at the time of argument nor any reference to the Maswadah Scheme has been made in ground (e)(i) of the writ petition. Some reference has been made to Maswa dah Scheme in ground (e)(if) but that point is different. The sum and substance of that point is that low quality area has been given to the petitioners. That point, therefore, concerns classification of land.
11. As regards the point about apprehension of the petitioners regarding the reduction of two Khasra Numbers in case of final determination of boundaries the learned counsel relied upon the report Annexure 'M'. It is not, however, proved from that report that the petitioners would, in any way, suffer. The only point made out is that the boundary line of village Nathey Khalsa and Mudke Dhariwal is disputed.
12. I have carefully gone through the revision petition (Annexure 'E) filed by the petitioners before the Board of Revenue. The main points in that revision petition are also about wrong classification and necessity of further adjustment, but apart from the fact that the classification was agreed upon and the matter of adjustment was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the consolidation authorities, the petitioners had no right to challenge the scheme as confirmed by the Collector since as held above the confirmation was with the consent of Abdul Jabbar petitioner who was representing at that time, all the petitioners who are his brothers and sisters. In view of this finding it is not necessary to consider the legal objection about the jurisdiction of the Member, Board of Revenue to dispose of the transfer application filed by the petitioners. But I find this point also to be without any merit. The learned counsel relied on this point upon section 6 of the Board of Revenue Act but this section does not support the petitioner. Subsection (1) of the section provides that "the Board may distribute its business amongst Members and may, by rules, regulate the procedure of all proceedings before it". Under subsection (2) an order passed by the Member shall be deemed to be an order of the Board. Subsection (3) of section 6 makes some provisions about the procedure to be adopted in a case where the Members of the Board are required to dispose of collectively some business in accordance with the rules framed under the Act. It was conceded that Mr. S. Afzal Agha had the jurisdiction to deal with the consolidation cases on account of the distribution of business as required by section 6(L). His order in respect of those cases is, therefore, to be considered as an order of the Board. Any matter incidental to the exercise of the jurisdiction in regard to consolidation cases was obviously within his jurisdiction.
13. No rule has been shown to me justifying any inference that an application for transfer of business from one Member to another Member could be disposed of collectively by all the Members. In the absence of Rules as required by subsection (3) of section 6 it cannot be laid down that the transfer application of the petitioner should have been considered by the Board collectively. The Board is required to act collectively either when there are rules framed under section 6(3) or in exercise of revisional jurisdic--tion under section 7 against the decision of any Member where such revision petition is competent.
14. The Board, as laid down in section 5(2), is the highest Court of appeal and revision in revenue cases in the Province. No Member of the Board of Revenue is, however, subordinate to the full Board. On the other hand as clearly laid down by subsection (2) of section 6 a Member is to be deemed to be the Board of Revenue for matters that can be dealt with by him under the provisions of section 6(l). Even the provisions of section 7 do not make a Member subordinate to the Board.
Section 7 does not create a subordination but provides only for a revision. Its provision is analogous to provisions of appeal in Clause 10 of the Letters Patent of the Lahore High Court (now omitted) or similar provisions of appeal from judgment of a Single Judge of the High Court to two or more Judges of the same Court in section 3 of the Law Reforms Ordinance, 1972, as amended by Law Reforms (Amendment) Ordinance XXXI of 1972. The nature of Letters Patent Appeals has been considered in a number of cases decided by High Courts. It was held in Shiekh Muzaffar Din v. Allah Vasal PLD 1953 Lah. 284, that "a Letters Patent Appeal is not really an appeal in the strict sense. It may be more aptly described as an internal arrangement of the Court for reviewing its own decision given in the first instance by one member of the Court. The first as well as the second decision remains a decision of the Court." In Abdul Haq v. Saifur Rahman PLD 1968 Lah. 478, it was observed that "in essence the Letters Patent Appeal under clause 10, is more in the nature of an intra Court arrangement designed to exercise control over its own affairs in the High Court. The appeal to the Division Bench against a judgment by the Single Bench is internal With the High Court and strictly speaking it is not in the nature of an appeal, to the superior Court against the decision of an inferior Court." These observations will apply to the provisions of similar appeal in the Law Reforms Ordinance as well as the provisions of intra Board Revision under the West Pakistan Board of Revenue Act. Section 7 provides only for an intra Board arrangement for exercise o control by the Board of Revenue over its own affairs and both the orders i.e. The order of a Single Member and the order of the Full Board remain decision of the Board.
15. On merits also I agree with the learned Member, Board of Revenue that there was no reason why the Member acting in his judicial capacity should be influenced by the inimical relations of the petitioners with somebody with whom the Member had cordial relations.
16. Before concluding the judgment I would refer to an objection by -the learned counsel for the respondents that this writ petition has abated by the death- of some of the respondents, namely, Umrao Khan, Umar Khan, Shatabi etc. It is, however, admitted that no of these persons died before the enforcement of the Law Reforms Ordinance, 1972, by which the law, about abatement was annulled. This argument is, therefore, without merit.
17. The petition is without force and is dismissed with costs.