1. ' WALI MUHAMMAD KHAN, J.---Pir Bakhsh, appellant herein, calls in question, through leave of the Court, the judgment, dated 14-2-1989 passed by a learned Single Judge of the Lahore High Court, whereby his Constitutional Petition No,908 of 1984 challenging the judgments of the hierarchy of special forums constituted under the Civil Procedure (Special Provisions) Ordinance, 1968 (West Pakistan Ordinance I of 1968) decreeing the suit for declaration filed by the respondents against the appellant, was dismissed. Operative part of leave granting order is as follows:--- "On behalf of the petitioner it is submitted that the Political Assistant, D.G. Khan, had no jurisdiction to entertain and proceed with the suit, because he was not delegated powers to deal with fresh institutions. In this connection the learned counsel has referred to the notification issued by the Deputy Commissioner, dated 8-2-1968 delegating different powers to the Political Assistant D.G.
2. Khan the relevant para. 4 of which reads as follows:- `Under section 15 of the Civil Procedure (Special Provisions) Ordinance, 1968, I delegate all my powers under this Ordinance to the Political Assistant, D.G. Khan to dispose of the civil suits pending in the De-Excluded Area of D.G. Khan District.'
3. ' It is submitted that since the suit was instituted on 14-6-1981, much after the issuance of this notification, therefore, the same could not have been entertained and tried by the Political Assistant, whose proceedings are coram non judice. It is further submitted that the plea being legal, it could be raised at any stage, as there is no estoppel against law.
4. ' The learned A.-G. Punjab, who appears on behalf of respondents Nos.1 to 3, submits that ever since the aforesaid notification was published, till the date it was substituted by another one, almost five to six thousand suits have been dealt with by the Political Assistant under the said delegated power and that the de facto exercise of power by the Political Assistant was a complete defence and any technical defect in his appointment or delegation would be of no legal consequence. It is further submitted that the petitioner did not raise the said objection to the jurisdiction before the Tribunal, the Commissioner, D.G. Khan, or the Law Secretary, Punjab, but took it up for the first time in writ petition.
5. ' The submissions raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner require examination. We would, therefore, grant leave in this case. The petitioner shall furnish security in the sum of Rs,2,000. Status quo shall be maintained, till the hearing of the main appeal."
6. ' We have heard Mr. Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, Advocate for the appellant; Mr. Tassadaq H. Gilani, Additional Advocate-General, for respondents Nos. 1 to 3; Mr. S.M. Tayyab, Advocate for respondent No,4; and have perused the record of the case with their assistance.
7. ' Admittedly, the subject-matter of the litigation between the parties is situated in Mauza Kachhi Pathani within the area of Fazla Katch, Tribal Area, Dera Ghazi Khan, the civil disputes whereof are triable under the provisions of Civil Procedure (Special Provisions) Ordinance, 1968) (West Pakistan)
8. Ordinance I of 1968) according to which a Tribunal is constituted by the Deputy Commissioner or any officer authorized by him and on reference of the dispute to it, the Tribunal after necessary inquiry into the dispute in question, submits its award to the Deputy Commissioner, who passes the decree according to law. In this case too, a reference was made to the Tribunal which submitted its verdict on 28-12-1982 by 4 out of 5 majority holding the plaintiffs/respondents owners of the suit land on the basis whereof the Political Assistant, Dera Ghazi Khan, vide his order, dated 1-2-1983, decreed the suit. Pir Bakhsh defendant/appellant preferred appeal under section 11 to the Commissioner but with no success vide order, dated 15-5-1983. The revision petition filed under section 12 of the Ordinance before the Secretary, Government of Punjab, Law Department, Lahore was also dismissed vide order, dated 19-5-1984. Left with no other remedy, the appellant filed a writ petition bearing No, 908/84 before the High Court which too, was dismissed vide the impugned order, dated 14-2-1989. A petition for special leave to appeal was filed in this Court in which leave was granted to consider whether the Political Assistant, Dera Ghazi Khan was properly authorized to dispose of the civil suits under section 15 of the Ordinance ibid and that the proceedings conducted by the hierarchy of the special forums were within the jurisdiction or coram non judice.
9. ' The Ordinance ibid was published in the Gazette of West Pakistan, Extraordinary, 12th June, 1968 and according to it the Deputy Commissioner is the authority to receive applications for adjudication or settlement of civil disputes and he is to constitute a Tribunal under section 4 thereof for reference of the dispute to it or a finding. According to section 2(b) 'Deputy Commissioner' includes any officer exercising or performing any power or function of a Deputy Commissioner under the said Ordinance and under section 15 thereof the Deputy Commissioner may authorize any officer not below the rank of an Extra-Assistant Commissioner to exercise or perform all or any of his powers or functions under the Ordinance, and may specify the areas within which, or the class of cases in respect of which, such powers may be exercised. Section 17 excludes pending proceedings from the operation of the Ordinance on its promulgation which are to be disposed of by the Court or authority seized of the same before the commencement of the Ordinance and the proceedings were to continue and disposed of as if this Ordinance had not come into force. The learned counsel for the appellant has challenged the finding of the special forums on the ground of jurisdiction before the High Court as well as in this Court and the learned Judge of the High Court in his impugned elaborate judgment has exhaustively dealt with the legal controversy with which we have no reason to differ. The main attack to the jurisdiction is that in the order of the Deputy Commissioner, Dera Ghazi Khan, dated 8-2-1968 with regard to the delegation of powers to his subordinates, in the relevant paragraph No,4 it is stated that "Under Section 15 of the Civil Procedure (Special Provisions) Ordinance 1968, I delegate all my powers under this Ordinance to the Political Assistant D.G. Khan to dispose of the civil suits pending in his De-Excluded Area of D.G. Khan District" and taking benefit of the word 'pending', the learned counsel for the appellant suggests that the authorization is restricted only to those cases which were pending at the time of the order in question and could not cover the cases instituted thereafter and the present suit having been filed thereafter could not be entertained and disposed of by the learned Political Assistant. The original Ordinance was promulgated by the Governor on 16-1-1968 which after approval of the Provincial Assembly of West Pakistan with amendments, on 17-5-1968 and assented to by the Governor of West Pakistan on 11-6-1968 was published in the Gazette of West Pakistan on 12-6-1968. The delegation under section 15 was made on 8-2-1968 and in-between the promulgation of Ordinance and the delegation not even a month had lapsed. The cases pending prior to the promulgation of the Ordinance as stated earlier, had been saved from the operation of the Ordinance and therefore, there could not possibly be pending cases before the Deputy Commissioner in between the said period for which he was to authorize the Political Assistant for disposal. The substance of the entire letter, dated 8-2-1968 makes it amply clear that through it, general authorization for the disposal of criminal and civil cases triable under the Ordinance, was made for the smooth and speedy disposal of cases. In the other paragraphs the word `instituted' has been used but in paragraph 4 in question the use of word `pending' apparently appears to be a clerical/typographical mistake. While delegating his powers, the Deputy Commissioner had to consider the rank of the officer being authorized and specify the area within which, or the class of cases in respect of which, such powers are to be exercised. It appears that while specifying the area viz., De-Excluded Area of D.G. Khan District instead of mentioning 'pertaining to' or some such other word, the word 'pending' has been inadvertently mentioned which has no meaning in the context of the order. The officer authorized through the order has all along been entertaining and disposing of cases for a long time and nobody objected to his jurisdiction believing that he has the valid delegated powers and when the mistake was noticed by the concerned authority, the mistake was rectified. In arriving at the above conclusion, we are fortified by the judgment of this Court in Hasham Khan v. The State PLD 1991 Supreme Court 567) wherein, the Supreme Court supplied the omission in the statutory provision with a view to bring it in conformity with the true intention of the law-maker. The relevant dictum is reproduced below:-- "The submission of the learned counsel for the appellant is that the language employed by the draftsman under section 11 is inartistic and does not express the true intention of the law-maker.
10. According to him, the real intention of the law-maker was to make a person guilty under section 11 to be punishable for an imprisonment extending to life as is the case in section 10(3) of the Ordinance and the word 'extending' has been inadvertently omitted in the provision. To us also this appears to be the case and we also feel that the real intention of the law-maker is not reflected in the actual text of the provision. But the question is whether we can supply this omission?
11. ' The Supreme Court in exercise of its ordinary jurisdiction has had occasion to deal with this question on more than one occasion and has ruled that even through the Court cannot normally give any meaning to a provision other than that which the words used therein by the draftsman carry (however, drastic or inconvenient the result may be) but the Court nevertheless in order to avoid injustice can give effect to the true and patent intention of the law-maker by supplying an omission (see Muhammad Amir Khan v. Controller of Estate Duty PLD 1961 SC 119 and Muhammad Ismail v. The State PLD 1969 SC 241).
12. ' And in our opinion, the jurisdiction of a Shariat Court in the matter of Ta'zir punishments is even more extensive.
13. ' Accordingly, in order to avoid injustice and to give effect to the true intention of the law-maker we would supply the inadvertent omission in section 11 of the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood)
14. Ordinance, 1979 with a view to bringing it in conformity with the true intention of the law-maker, as follows:--- `11. Kidnapping. Abducting or inducing woman to compel for marriage etc--Whoever kidnaps or abducts any woman with intent that she may be compelled or knowing it to be likely that she will be compelled, to marry any person against her will, or in order that she may be forced or seduced to illicit intercourse, or knowing it to be likely that she will be forced or seduced to illicit intercourse, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to life and with whipping not exceeding thirty stripes, and shall also be liable to fine; and whoever by means of criminal intimidation as defined in the Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860), or of abuse of authority or any other method of compulsion, induces any woman to go from any place with intent that she may be or, knowing that it is likely that she will be, forced or seduced to illicit intercourse with another person shall also be punishable as aforesaid.
15. (Underlined words are ours, in place of the words 'for life' presently appearing in S.11)."
16. We are, therefore, convinced that the impugned orders of the special forums do not suffer from any jurisdictional error, and finding no illegality in the impugned judgment of the High Court, dismiss the instant appeal.