SYED JAMSHED ALI, J. - Suit filed by the appellants for permanent injunction in respect of land measuring 841 kanals, 19 marlas was decreed in their favour on 26.6.1974. An appeal taken by the respondents before the District Court, was, however, allowed vide judgment and decree dated 20.9.1977 which is the subject-matter of the present second appeal.
2. According to the averments of the plaint, the appellants were allotted the land in dispute (841 Kanals, 19 Marlas) under a Scheme framed by the Thai Development Authority, 1951. According to this scheme the refugees with small holdings, who were prepared to surrender their allotted lands were entitled to the allotment of larger area in the Thai under die said Scheme. According to the case of the plaintiffs/appellants they surrendered their allotment in Multan and Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) and in lieu thereof t the disputed land was allotted to them under the aforesaid Scheme. It was further averred in the plaint that on the instigation of the enemies of the appellants, the respondent/T.D.A. Had resumed this land and was out to forcibly dispossess the appellants.
Orders of resumption were challenged in the suit on a number of grounds. The prayer was, however, confined to a perpetual injunction thereby seeking to restrain the respondents from interfering in the possession of the appellants.
3. The suit was contested by the respondents on a number of grounds including that the appellants have already failed before this Court and the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan, they were not in possession of the land in dispute, they were not refugees but were locals and had got the allotment through fraud and misrepresentation and therefore it was cancelled. Necessary issues were framed and the suit tried which was decreed on 26.6.1974. The respondents succeeded in the appeal. The learned first Appellate Court after taking notice of the judgment of this Court in writ petition No. 1505 of 1965 (Ext. P-19) and judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in C.P. No. 163 of 1966 (Ext. P-20) decided respectively on 5.4.966 and 24.5.1966, came to the conclusion that the said judgments operated as res judicata.
3. Learned counsel for the appellants has contended that interpretation of the judgments rendered by this Court and the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan will determine the fate of this appeal.
According to him, dismissal of the writ petition and affirmance of the order passed therein by the Supreme Court did not preclude the appellants from establishing their claim before the Civil Court by way of general remedy of the suit.
4. I have considered the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioners and have carefully gone through the judgments of this Court and the Hon'ble Supreme Court. The question directly in issue has been whether the appellants were locals or refugees. This Court, after considering the merits of the case declined to interfere with the finding that the matter had duly been inquired into. The Hon'ble Supreme Court affirmed the findings of the learned Chairman T.D.A.
And the learned Member Board of Revenue that the appellants were locals and not refugees. This finding clinches the whole issue. The judgments rendered by this Court and the Hon'ble Supreme Court did not provide any window to the petitioners to re-agitate the matter. They had a choice of a remedy i.e. To challenge the resumption by way of a Constitutional petition or to seek remedy by way of a suit. They preferred the first course. The adverse findings were recorded against the appellants per-invitum. None else except they themselves are to blame for this.
5. The appeal has no merit and is, accordingly, dismissed with no order as to costs.