WATER AND POWER DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY through Chairman and anothers vs BILAL AHMED and anothers
This matter arises from a petition filed by the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) challenging the concurrent judgments and decrees of the lower courts which decreed a suit for damages and compensation brought by the respondents against WAPDA. The respondents' shop caught fire on January 31, 1985, due to alleged electric sparking in electricity cables placed by WAPDA on the shop's roof. The trial court decreed the suit in favor of the respondents on January 24, 1990, awarding compensation, which was subsequently upheld by the Lahore High Court in an appeal on February 22, 2001. The core legal question before the Supreme Court was whether the concurrent findings of the lower courts suffered from material irregularities such as misreading or non-reading of evidence or failure to frame separate issues regarding heads of damages. The Supreme Court held that the petitioners could not raise new arguments regarding unformulated issues at the belated stage of the Supreme Court petition and found no misreading or non-reading of evidence to justify interference with the concurrent findings. The petition was accordingly dismissed.
- Can a party raise new arguments regarding unformulated issues for the first time before the Supreme Court?
- Does the absence of separate issues framed for different heads of a claim vitiate concurrent findings of lower courts?
- Under what circumstances will the Supreme Court interfere with concurrent findings of fact by lower courts?
' KHALIL-UR-REHMAN RAMDAY, J.--- The shop of the respondents located in Amin Bazaar, Sargodha got burnt on 31-1-1985 allegedly on account of electric sparking in the electricity cables which the functionaries of the petitioner-WAPDA had placed on the roof of the said shop. The respondent brought a suit in the Court of a learned Civil Judge at Sargodha on 3-11-1986 seeking damages and compensation for the negligent act of the petitioners which suit was decreed through a judgment dated 24-1-1990 of the learned trial Judge directing the petitioners herein to pay a sum of Rs,5,50,000 to the respondents. The petitioners then approached the Lahore High Court through R.F.A. No,71 of 1990 which was dismissed through a judgment, dated 22-2-2001 of a learned Division Bench of the Honourable High Court. Hence this petition.
2. The learned Advocate Supreme Court for the petitioners impugns the said concurrent findings on the ground that the claim was made by the plaintiffs/respondents under three heads but separate issues were not framed for each of the said heads; that the compensation claimed by the plaintiffs/respondents was not evaluated by either of the two learned Courts under each head; that both the learned Courts failed to appreciate that whenever there was sparking in the electricity cables, the same always travelled back to the transformer and never forwards towards the property and that the two learned Courts were in error in not having appreciated the evidence available on record in its correct prospective and in the circumstances the impugned judgments were liable to be set aside.
3. The judgment and decree passed by the learned trial Judge was affirmed and consequently maintained by the Honourable High Court. The first two submissions noticed above were not asserted by the petitioners at the proper stage because no issue was framed on the said A questions and in the circumstances we do not find it possible to permit the petitioners to raise these questions for the first time at this belated stage. No misreading or non-reading of the kind exists which could justify intervention with the concurrent findings of the two learned Courts including the Honourable High Court.
4. Having thus, examined the matter from all angles, we find that no exception could be taken to the impugned judgment. This petition is, therefore, dismissed. .