' This is an application filed under section 15-A of the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance, 1959, and Article 203 of the Constitution, seeking transfer of an ejectment proceeding from one Rent Controller to another. The petitioner had earlier moved the District Judge in the matter but his application was dismissed on 5-4-1979.
2. Section 15-A of the Ordinance does not empower the High Court to transfer a matter from one Controller to another. That power is available only to the Appellate Authority. The High Court has been empowered to withdraw only an appeal pending with an Appellate Authority. Learned counsel, however, relying on Mst. Gaman v. Taj Din and Mst. Safia Begum v. Abdul Hamid urged that this Court has power under Article 203 to allow the transfer. By Article 203, the High Court is empowered to "supervise and control all Courts subordinate to it". This power had been invoked in the aforesaid authorities for transfer of suits under the Family Courts Act because at that time section 25-A of the Act did not exist and as such there was no power anywhere available for effecting a transfer. The power was invoked upon the view that the family Court was not a persona designata but was a Court of law within the meaning of then Article 102 of the Constitution. The Controller, however, is not a Court and as such the provision of the Article cannot be invoked.
Moreover, section 15-A of the Ordinance spells out the powers at the two levels for ordering transfers. The Legislature, therefore, in the context of the Ordinance, never intended to vest the High Court with the power to transfer a proceeding from one Controller to another. In such a situation, too, recourse to the Constitutional provision relating to supervision of subordinate Courts cannot be had.1 2 ' The question of the powers of the High Court had specifically come before a Single Bench in Khadim Hussain v. Ghulam Muhammad and it had been held that the "High Court has no power to direct the transfer of a case pending before a Rent Controller".
3. For these reasons the petition is not competent and is accordingly dismissed in limine. PLD 1968 Lah. 987 PLD 1968 Lah. 1358 PLD 1971 Lab. 529