IRSHAD HASAN KHAN, C.J.--- By this common judgment we intend to dispose of the above petitions as they arise out of a common judgment passed by a learned Judge in Chambers of the Lahore High Court, Multan Bench, Multan in Writ Petition No. 58-R/1979, disposing of the said writ petition, writ petitions Nos. 191-R/1979, 259-R/1980, 317R/1979, 472-R/1980, 66-R/1979 and 110-R/1980 along side other matters. It may he stated, at the very outset, that Writ Petition No. 191-R/1979 was dismissed and that the rest of the writ petitions involved in the above matters were allowed, the orders respectively impugned therein were set aside and the to the AC/DSC(L)/Notified Officer for fresh decision in accordance with law.
2. Mr. Hassan Ahmad Khan Kanwar, learned ASC appearing in support of all the petitioners has argued that the learned Judge in Chambers was in error in non-suiting the petitioners in Civil Petition No. 1223L/1999 (Writ Petition No. 191-R/1979) on an incorrect appreciation of the facts on the ground. According to him, the case of the petitioners was lost sight of by the learned Judge in Chambers in that the outer limit of 300 PIUs fixed in the policy decision/letter of Mr. I.U. Khan, the then Rehabilitation Commissioner dated 23.11.1956, has been reduced to the extent of two acres of land in favour of private respondent herein who happens to be son of Allah Bakhsh son of Khairoo son of Nathal.
3. As regards the remaining petitions Mr. Kanwar was of the view that the orders of remand made in them are ex facie illegal for the simple reason that past and closed transactions should not have been undone and matters remanded to the AC/DSC(L)/Notified Officer. The precise prayer was that the petitioners/their predecessors had been settled on the respective disputed Khatas in different villages and undoing the same at this late stage will tantamount to their dislocation contrary to the concept of settlement rather than dis-settlement of the petitioners/predecessors.
He made a reference to Abdul Hafiz v. Rehabilitation Commissioner, West Pakistan (PLD 1966 SC 483) and Barkat A.I v. Maula Bakhsh (PLD 1972 SC 307) to contend that the allotments of the year 1959 pursuant to the order of Mr. I.U. Khan, the then Rehabilitation Commissioner having been upheld the same should have been saved rather than tinkered with as had been done in the impugned judgment dated 8.7.1999.
4. Contrarily, Mr._ Tanvir Ahmed, learned ASC appearing on behalf of the private respondents in all the above petitions and Mr. Muhammad Shahzad Shaukat representing respondents Nos. 2 and 3 in Civil Petition No. 1460-L/1999 have supported the impugned judgment. Between themselves, the learned counsel have sought to get support from Allah Baskhsh v. Assistant Commissioner (1984 PSC 462) and Rahmitullah v. District Judge and Settlement Commissioner, Sukkur (1968 SCMR 337), to contend that the allotments to their clients cannot be touched in line with the case of Allah Bakhsh (supra) and that remand order does not qualify for being reversed in these proceedings as held in Rahmitullah (supra).
5. We have heard the learned counsel for the petitioners as also private respondents/caveators and have also been taken through the available material by them. As regards Civil Petition No. 1223-L/1999 we find that the learned Judge in Chambers made an in-depth study of the attending facts and circumstances of the case in relation to the allotment of disputed parcel of land in Chak No. 180/EB to one Khairoo in 1951 and that the implementation of Mr. I.U. Khan's order dated 23.11-.1956 stood cancelled and land was allotted to Heema, the predecessor-in-interest of the petitioners, to come to the conclusion that Allah Bakhsh son of Heema being a party to writ petition in the earlier round of litigation and the said judgment rendered in that writ petition being operative between the parties, the confirmation of allotment dated 13.12.1951 in favour of Khairoo (predecessor-in-title of Muhammad Aslam respondent No. 2) has rightly been maintained. "It was held in Writ Petition No. 1344-R/1977 that Khairoo was entitled to the benefit of order dated 29.1.1960 passed in Writ Petition No. 605-R/1958" (underlining is for emphasis). Paragraph 32 of the impugned judgment reads thus:-- "According to the report and parawise comments submitted by Assistant Commissioner/D.S.C.(L) the petitioners' predecessor, in-interest was not temporary allottee of the disputed land. In fact the disputed land was in the allotment of one Ismail son of Waryam. I, therefore, see no ground to interfere. The writ petition is, accordingly, dismissed."
Learned counsel for the petitioners was not in a position to controvert the findings recorded by the learned Judge in Chambers. We are not inclined to the view that any illegality has crept into the above excerpts from the impugned judgment in paragraphs 31-32 at pages 40-41 of the relevant Paper Book. Moreover, the earlier orders made in Writ Petitions Nos. 605R/ and 1344-R/1977, to say the least, had attained finality between the private litigants in this cause and in the absence of any genuine and legitimate reason for upsetting the findings recorded in the past, their successors have to abide by the same in letter and spirit thereof. This is exactly what the learned Judge in Chambers has done by non-suiting the petitioners in Writ Petition No. 191-R/1979.
6. Civil Petitions Nos. 1434-L/1999 to 1491-L/1999 should not detain us any further. The observations made by the learned Judge in Chambers in paragraphs 25, 36, 40, 22 and 29 of the impugned judgment respectively have the effect of putting both the private parties on their guard to establish their respective cases before the concerned AC/DSC(L)/Notified Officer by producing relevant material in support of their causes. These endeavours made by the learned Judge in Chambers, to come to the above conclusion in the cases of the -litigants/their predecessors-in-title, should not go waste and, once and for all, they should obtain the satisfaction of having obtained final orders in relation to the disputed Khatas by participating in the remand proceedings as directed by learned Judge in Chambers. The plea raised by Mr. Hassan Ahmed Khan Kanwar that the remand of the above cases is illegal, does not admit of any serious thought by us in these proceedings for the simple reason that the observations made by the learned Judge in Chambers, while disposing of all the respective writ petitions, have not been shown to he suffering from any legal infirmity whatsoever. It was rightly observed by the learned Judge in Chambers that the orders impugned in the respective writ petitions could not stand the test of scrutiny under the law read with the general order of the then. Rehabilitation Commissioner dated 23.11.1956 as also the subsequent findings by the High Court as well as this Court in earlier litigation.
7. Resultantly, the petitions fail and are hereby dismissed. Leave is refused .