MUHAMMAD BASHIR JEHANGIRI, J.-- This petition for leave to appeal is directed against the judgment dated- 7.4.1999 passed by the learned Division Bench of the Lahore High Court, Lahore, whereby R.F.A. No. 173/98 was dismissed as barred by time.
2. According to the office objection, the above petition is barred by time by 2 days. Mr. Rasheed Murtaza Qureshi, learned ASC appearing on behalf of the petitioner, has conceded that the petition was barred by 2 days, sought condonation of delay orally on the ground that the law of limitation in this context was un- Islamic.
3. This ground has not been taken up by the petitioner in any application for condonation of delay.
4. When faced with this situation, the learned counsel could not cite any law whereby the limitation imposed for filing of, the petition in this Court has been declared to be offending any Quranic Injunction and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him).
5. The RFA giving rise to this petition has also been dismissed on the ground of Limitation wherein an application under section 5 of the limitation Act, 1908 has been filed which was dismissed by the learned Division Bench observing as under:-- "Learned counsel for the appellant states this reason that he could not file the present appeal, alongwith application for condonation of delay, a certificate from some Chaudhry Clinic of Dr. Sarwar Chaudhry, has been placed on the record which is dated 20.2.1998. According to this, the appellant has been under treatment of this Doctor since November, 1997 and was suffering from Lumbago seratic syndrome. However, from the said certificate as also from the contents of the application, it is not established that the appellant was suffering from such an ailment that he was totally confined to bed and was precluded from filing the appeal before this Court after the same has been returned by the lower Appellate Court. The averment that some new certified copies of the judgment and decree were applied and certain time was consumed in getting such copies is also baseless because in case of return of the appeal, no such documents were required. Without expressing our view regarding genuineness of the certificate, we find that no sufficient cause has made out in which delay of almost 26 days, be condoned. Besides, it is still questionable as to whether the appellant who had approached wrong forum is entitled to have the time spent before the lower Appellate Court excluded.
In view of the above; this application is dismissed. Resultantly, the appeal is also barred by time and is hereby dismissed."
6. The petitioner has not filed any application for condonation of the above delay though it is well- settled proposition of law that delay is to be explained in filing the petition for leave to appeal beyond the period of limitation. Reference in this context is made to: (1) Ahmad Din V. Mst. Rasul Bibi (P.L.D. 1968 S.C. 213), (2) Zahoor Elahi V. S. Fazal-ur-Rehman (1969 SCM R 274), (3) Mst. Allah Rakhi V.
Irshad Bibi (1994 SCM R 2244), (4) Muhammad Nawaz V. Abdus Salam (PLD 1997 S.C. 563) and (5)
Aftab Shahban Mirani V. President of Pakistan (1 998 SCMR 1863).
7. The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner has also not been able to convince us that the learned Division Bench was not justified to have passed the impugned order declining the condonation of delay of 26 days in filing the R.F.A.
8. In this view of the matter, we are of the considered opinion that the learned Division Bench of the High Court was perfectly justified to have dismissed the R.F.A. Giving rise to this petition as barred by limitation by 26 days. Likewise even this petition is barred by 2 days for which no application for condonation of delay has been filed;
9. This petition is, therefore, dismissed and leave to appeal is declined.