MEHR MUHAMMAD vs DEPUTY SETTLEMENT COMMISSIONER AND Other

ORDER

1. G. SAFDAR SHAH, J.--The dispute in this case relates to an evacuee House No. A/135, Kashmiri Bazar, Rawalpindi. The record would show that for the transfer of the said house late Ghulam Muhammad son of Mian Barkat A.I, the predecessor-in-interest of the petitioner, had filed with the Deputy Settlement Commissioner his. C. H. Form claiming therein that he was in possession. For the transfer of the shop underneath it. However, late Ghulam Muhammad son of Raji Feroz Din had submitted his C. H. Form. On the death of the father of the petitioner in 1960, the petitioner herein deposited the balance price of the said house. But when he made an application to the Deputy Settlement Commissioner for the issuance of P. T. O./P. T. D., he was informed that the house and the shop underneath it both had been transferred to late Ghulam Muhammad son of Haji Feroz Din.

2. The petitioner herein, therefore, challenged the said order first in the Department unsuccessfully and thereafter he filed in the High Court writ petition impleading therein as respondent the said Ghulam Muhammad son of Haji Feroz Din who had already died. Notwithstanding this position, however, the High Court considered the case of the petitioner on merit and rejected his various contentions. In the concluding part of the order, however, the learned Judge observed that "the petition, moreover, suffers from inherent defect. It has been filed against a dead man. At the time of institution of this petition on 6-8-1977, Ghulam Muhammad respondent was already dead and his legal heirs brought on record by the order of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner, dated 2-2- 1977". Finding no merit in the petition, therefore, the same was dismissed by the impugned judgment. It is in this background that the petitioner has come up to this Court praying for leave to appeal against the impugned judgment of the High Court.

3. The learned counsel conceded before us that long before the writ petition was filed in the High Court, Ghulam Muhammad son of Haji Feroz Din had already died. He, therefore, agreed that the petition having been filed against a dead person was incompetent. His grievance, however is that the learned Judge m the High Court should have defrained from going into the merits of' the, case and should have dismissed the petition on that short ground. We are afraid this contention seems to us to be technical. It is well established that any order passed against a dead person would be a nullity in law-especially when long before the institu--petition of the proceedings against him he had already died. In this view of the matter, the conclusion recorded by the learned Judge in the High Court, in so far as the merits of the case are concerned, would have no significance as they were recorded against a dead person. On this short ground, therefore, this petition fails and is dismissed.