KHAWAJA MUHAMMAD SAEED, J.---This appeal, with leave of the Court, is directed against the judgment of the. High Court dated 22-3-2002, whereby the appeal filed by the appellant, herein, was dismissed and the judgment of the District Judge was maintained.
2. Relevant facts culminating into the present appeal; briefly 'stated, are that the appellant brought a suit for declaration in the Court of Senior Civil Judge, Mirpur, alleging therein, that the land comprising various survey numbers detailed in paras.1 and 2 of the plaint, measuring 67 Kanals and 17 Marlas was in the joint ownership and possession of him and pro forma respondents.
According to him, the acreage of old Survey Number 599 was 12 Marlas. Now in the new settlement it has been given a new Survey No.976 and its acreage has been increased from 12 Marlas to 15 Marlas. In the same way the total measurement of the land belonging to the appellant and pro forma respondents was 68 Kanals, 3 Marlas which in the new settlement has been decreased by six Marlas and now the land measurement has been entered in the Revenue Record as 67 Kanals, 17 Marlas. According to him, the respondents in Survey No.976 has erected a wall and have occupied three Marlas land by amalgamating the same in their own land. He, therefore, prayed that he and pro forma respondents be declared owners of land comprising various survey numbers total measuring 67 Kanals, 17 Marlas and Revenue Record prepared by the Revenue Department with the connivance of the contesting respondents be declared ineffective and inoperative against the rights of the appellant and pro forma respondents and the same be corrected and the contesting respondents be directed to demolish the wall and deliver the possession of three Marlas of land to the appellant and pro forma respondents. With the plaint the Revenue Record was appended by the appellant.
3. The contesting respondents in their written statement beside repudiating the contents of the plaint m detail challenged the maintainability of the suit on three grounds. Firstly that the plaintiff- appellant has got no cause of action; secondly that his suit in the present form is not maintainable; and thirdly that the Court has no jurisdictional competence to entertain the suit. At the end of the trial the suit was decreed by the trial Court vide its judgment and decree dated 30-I1-1999. Feeling aggrieved from the aforesaid judgment and decree the contesting respondents filed an appeal before the District Judge, Mirpur which was accepted vide judgment and decree dated 17-5-2001.
The appellant preferred an appeal before the High Court on 9-8-2001, which was dismissed vide judgment under challenge dated 22-3-2002, on the ground that Survey No.599 was not shown as land in dispute. Hence, this appeal with leave of the Court.
4. Raja Habibullah Khan, .The learned counsel for the appellant, argued that the judgment-of the High Court is the result of misreading of the pleadings. According to him, in the record appended with the plaint it is proved that the land mentioned in paras. Nos.1 and 2 of the plaint belongs to the appellant and pro forma respondents. He further argued that the officials of the Revenue Department in new settlement enhanced the acreage of old Survey No.599 by three Marlas when they gave it new Survey No.976. The respondents have amalgamated three Marlas of land in their own land comprising Survey No.976 by erecting walls. In these circumstances the trial Court, was justified in law in decreeing the suit of his client. The learned District Judge, therefore, committed an error in reversing this finding of the trial Court which was illegally maintained by the learned Judge in the High Court.
5. While controverting the arguments of the learned counsel for the appellant, Ch. Muhammad Sabir, the learned counsel for the respondents, argued that the land belonging to the appellant and pro forma respondents is not the subject of controversy between the parties. According to him, the respondents, herein have admitted that the acreage of Survey No.976 is 12 Marlas which is in their ownership and possession but inadvertently the officials of the Revenue Department, on account of human error, have shown its acreage as 15 Marlas. He further argued that the appellant in his plaint has not disclosed that out of which survey number belonging to him and pro forma respondents, his clients have encroached upon and erected walls, nor the appellant has mentioned any such date when such encroachment was made by his clients. According to him, the appellant wanted the right of way from the land of the respondents which was not allowed by them, as such he involved them in the present suit based on fictitious facts. While relying on the last line of para. No.2 of the plaint and on the relief clause, whereby appellant wants correction in the measurement of the survey numbers, the learned counsel argued that on account of such relief the suit of the plaintiff --appellant was not maintainable in the Civil Court. He relied on section 172 of the Land Revenue Act, 1967, in support of this contention. He further argued that in presence of the admitted facts and the evidence on record, this case may not be remanded to the High Court merely on the grounds that certain facts were misstated in the judgment under challenge. According to him, this Court has got the ample powers to decide this case itself without burdening the parties with extra expenses by remanding the case to the High Court. He supported this contention by placing reliance on a case titled Chairman, WAPDA, Lahore and another v.
Gulbat Khan (1996 SCM R 230).
6. We have considered the respective arguments of the learned counsel for the parties and gone through the reports; of the cases referred to by the learned counsel for the respondents in which it is laid down that this Court can decide the case itself without remanding the same to the lower forum. We agree with the learned counsel for the respondents that the cases cannot be remanded in routine just to prolong unnecessarily the litigation between the parties. The suit has been filed by the appellant to seek the declaration that the land comprising various survey numbers detailed in paras. 1 and 2 of the plaint measuring 67 Kanals, 17 Marlas be declared in his ownership as well as in the ownership of the pro forma respondents and the shortage of the land to the extent of six Marlas in the Revenue Record be declared ineffective and inoperative against his rights as well as against the rights of the pro forma respondents. He has also sought a declaration from the Civil Court that this record to the extent of six Marlas is liable to correction. He has also sought the possession of six Marlas of land from respondents Nos.3 to 6 by demolishing the walls which they have erected over the same. In the plaint it is not mentioned that over which survey number belonging to the appellant and pro forma respondents the contesting respondents Nos.3 to 6 have constructed some walls and amalgamated 3 Marlas of land in what survey number belonging to them. No doubt in para. No.3 they have mentioned that the acreage of old Survey No.599 was 12 Marlas but in the recent settlement, which took place in the years 1989-90, the land was given new Survey No.976 whose acreage has been shown 15 Marlas and they have erected a wall over this survey number. According to this para of the plaint the encroachment by the pro forma respondents has been made to the extent of three Marlas of land whereas in the relief clause they have shown that the contesting respondents Nos.3 to 6 have encroached upon six Marlas of land by erecting walls, therefore, a decree for possession to that extent has been prayed for. This contradiction has neither been explained nor the correction has been made in the plaint by moving an amendment application up to this time. Therefore, in our view, the pleading is vague.
The plaintiff was bound to disclose that upon what survey number encroachment has been made by the respondents and when this encroachment was effected by them. In this connection they should have appended the report obtained from the concerned Revenue Staff showing encroachment on the part of the respondents over the land belonging to the appellant and pro forma respondents. Even the sketch of the relevant part of the land which was taken possession of by contesting respondents without lawful entitlement was not appended with the plaint. In these circumstances the learned District Judge committed no error in setting aside the judgment of the trial Court.
7. The appellant wants the correction of the Revenue Record which as rightly pointed out by the learned counsel for the respondents is within the exclusive competence of the Revenue Department as has been laid down in section 172 of the Land Revenue Act, 1967, adapted in this part of the State whereby the jurisdiction of Civil Court in cases where the correction of any entry in the record of rights or in the periodical record or register of mutations is concerned, has been excluded besides some other matters which are not relevant in the present appeal. These matters are within the exclusive competence of the Revenue Officers. The suit filed by the plaintiff-appellant seeking correction of any entry recorded in the record of rights, 'khasra girdawari' in the light of the new settlement, therefore, can be competently entertained by a competent Revenue Officer and not by a Civil Court. Even from this angle the suit of the plaintiff-- appellant was not maintainable before a Civil Court.