SHAFIUR RAHMAN, J.---Leave to appeal was granted to examine whether the law laid down in Sardar Muhammad and another v. Chairman, Town Committee, Sadiqabad and others (PLD 1962 Baghdad-ul-Jadid 8) and Haji S. Habibullah and another v. Municipal Committee, Quetta (PLD 1977 Quetta 631) was attracted to the facts of the case and lays down the correct law on the subject.
2. The factual background of the case is that the respondent No,1 (hereinafter referred to as the respondent) obtained a contract from the appellant for the collection of General Bus Stand Adda fee for the year 198283 from a sum of Rs,2,30,070 payable in 12 monthly instalments. The Adda fee was to be collected at the rates notified. In view of the defaults made by the contract in making the payment of the instalments, the contract was rescinded and the job taken over by the appellant from 20th May, 1983. A demand of Rs,64,544 was made from him.
3. At first, the respondent instituted a civil suit but on his plaint being rejected, he approached the High Court in the Constitutional jurisdiction. In the Constitution petition, the respondent claimed certain adjustments after which it admitted his liability to pay Rs,506 which it wanted to deposit with the respondent, which refused to accept the same. The position taken up in the Constitution petition was that the amount sought to be recovered from him was neither ascertained nor determined nor was it recoverable as arrears of land revenue. The only question which was considered by the High Court in the impugned judgment was whether the amount was recoverable from the respondent as arrears of land revenue. The learned Judge after examining the decisions in the two cases referred to in para. 1, and the law on the subject came to the conclusion that section 141 of the Punjab Local Government Ordinance, 1979 did not permit such a recovery.
' An Intra-Court Appeal was preferred which was held to be incompetent. Hence, a delayed appeal was filed against the decision of the learned Judge in Chambers. The delay in filing the appeal has already been condoned while granting leave to appeal in the case.
4. The respondents have been proceeded ex parte in the case.
5, Mr. M.M. Saeed Beg, Advocate, the learned counsel for the appellant did not dispute the correctness of the decisions in the two reported cases but tried to distinguish them by pointing out to the change in the language of section 141 of the Lbcal Government Ordinance where the word "rents" has been introduced and the contention is that what was sought to be recovered from the respondent was in the nature of rent and by the express words of the status so authorised by the law.
6. It is indeed correct that unlike its predecessor enactments, the Punjab Local Government Ordinance by its section 141 expressly provides that "all arrears of taxes, rents and other moneys payable to a local council under the Ordinance shall be recoverable as arrears of land revenue. "In the case of Sardar Muhammad (PLD 1962 Baghdad-ul-Jadid 8) and Haji S. Habibullah (PLD 1977 Quetta 71) the recovery of rent was sought to be made as arrears of land revenue but the Court did not permit it on the ground that the rent being not expressly mentioned in the predecessor Acts could not be included in the other generic expression "other moneys recoverable under the Ordinance". It was clearly to make up for this omission that now the word "rent" has expressly been included thereby making the decisions referred to irrelevant.
7. The question in this appeal is whether what is sought to be recovered from the contractor is "rent" or not. "Rent" has been defined in section 105 of the Transfer of Property Act as hereunder (the relevant portions are underlined):-- "A lease of immovable property is a transfer of a right to enjoy such property, made for a certain time, express or implied, or in perpetuity, in consideration of a price paid or promised, or of money, a share of crops, service or any other thing of value, to be rendered periodically or on specified occasions, to the transferor by the transferee, who accepts the transfer on such terms.
' Lessor, lessee, premium and rent defined.
' The transferor is called the lessor, the transferee is called the lessee, the price is called the premium, and the money, share. Service or other thing to be so rendered is called the rent."
8. In the case State of Punjab and another v. British India Corporation Ltd. (AIR 1963 SC 1459) it was pointed out that in its wider sense 'rent' means "any payment made for the use of land or buildings and thus includes the payment by a licensee in respect of the use and occupation of any land or building. In its narrow sense it means payment made by tenant to landlord for property demised to him".
The contract between the parties which is the subject-matter of consideration before us is not with respect to any immovable property but a mere right to collect Adda Fee from those using the recognised parking places within the limits of the Municipal Committee. The right to collect taxes due from property does not make the payment 'rent' for what is given under the contract is not the rent but right to collect the fee or taxes. This is the contractual matter, a matter requiring accounting and a matter calling for determination and adjudication. So what is being demanded from the respondents by the appellant is not rent as understood in law and for that reason, this provision of the local Government of Ordinance is not of avail to it.
9. The appeal is without merit and is dismissed with no order as to costs.