' Respondents suit for declaration that they are the heirs of Noor Din son of Umer Bakhsh and thus are entitled to the estate left by him to the extent of 3/4th share, was allowed by the learned trial Court vide judgment and decree dated 8-7-1989; appeal filed by the appellants failed.
2. Briefly stated the facts of the case are that respondents brought a suit claiming that they and the defendants/appellants are the successors of a common ancestor namely Ditta, who died before the partition of the sub-continent, leaving behind five sons and the landed property. The parties lived in Hoshiarpur, prior to the partition and migrated to Pakistan in the year 1947. Plaintiffs settled in Gujranwala District while defendants settled in Haloki, Tehsil and District Lahore. Noor Din son of Umer Bakhsh died in 1961, leaving behind him Rabia, defendant, his widow and Rashidan a step-daughter. Khadija as his sister and the plaintiffs as the collaterals. On the death of Noor Din, Assistant Collector-II sanctioned Mutation No.10.02, regarding the property left by the deceased, as per which, Rabia was entitled to 1/4th while plaintiffs to the extent of 3/4th share of the property. But the defendants filed appeal against this mutation, which was accepted and the mutation was reviewed vide order of the Assistant Collector Grade-I dated 7-3-1967, through which, -the plaintiffs were not found entitled to inherit the estate, thus in the above circumstances, the respondents/plaintiffs brought the suit with the prayer mentioned above and also sought the setting aside of the order dated 7-3-1967. The suit was contested by the appellants, who denied the relationship of plaintiffs with the deceased; in the light of pleadings of . The parties, issues were framed; the important being Issue No.1, which reads as follows:-- ' Whether the plaintiffs are the heirs of Noor Din son of Umer Dakhsh? OPP ' Parties led evidence: respondents in order to prove the above relationship, produced pedegree- table Exh.P.3 and examined one of the plaintiffs as P.W.5, and two witnesses namely Awadan (P.W.2) and Noor Din (P.W.3). Both the Courts below found no help from Exh.P.3, as it does not clearly connect the parties to the common ancestor or prove the relationship of the plaintiffs with Noor Din. However, the Courts have relied upon the oral evidence of P.W.2 and P.W.3, on finding Issue No.1 in favour of respondents; according to the learned Courts below, the witnesses have accurately deposed about the pedegree-table of the parties and thus on account of above, the appellants are the legal heirs of Noor Din.
3. Learned counsel for the appellants by relying upon Ghulam Muhammad and others v. Allah Yar and others (PLD 1965 (W.P), Lahore 482), has argued that the opinion of a person to establish the relationship of such person to another is inadmissible in evidence until and unless it is proved on the record that the person who is testifying about the relationship fulfils the criteria laid down in Article 64 of the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984. It is submitted that none of the witnesses, have laid the foundation of establishing the source of their opinion, they are neither member of the family nor friends or having special means of knowledge to depose that the respondents are the legal heirs of Noor Din.
4. I have myself read the statement of P.W.2, and P.W.3 and find that they though have narrated the pedegree-table but none of the two witnesses are either the family member, the friends of the family or have been able to establish the special means of knowledge. P.W.2 in his statement has categorically admitted that he had not seen Ditta, nor the sons of Ditta, who had died before he was born. However, he states that he was Sarbrah Lumberdar of the village, where the family of the parties resided, but there is no proof of his Lumberdari on the record. Similar is the statement of P.W.3, thus on the basis of above statements by applying the rule of the dictums referred to above, the witnesses have miserably failed to state the source of their information about the disputed relationship and thus their opinion was legally irrelevant and inadmissible; learned Courts below could not have given the findings of Issue No.1, in favour of respondents, on the basis of such inadmissible evidence, which does not fulfil the strict criteria of Article 64. Therefore, the impugned judgments and decrees based thereupon cannot be sustained, resultantly, this appeal is allowed, the judgment and decree- of the Courts below are set aside with the result that the suit of the respondents failed.