DR.MUHAMMAD AFRAZ BHATTI vs DEPUTY SETTLEMENT COMMISSIONER Etc.S
This matter arises from a petition directed against an order of the High Court in an Inter-Court Appeal which maintained the dismissal of a writ petition regarding the transfer of a property. The core legal question concerns the validity of a property transfer versus a subsequent auction of the same property, specifically whether an earlier transfer order was bogus or genuine. The Supreme Court held that the concurrent findings of the lower forums and the High Court establishing the genuineness and subsistence of the initial transfer order were unexceptionable, rendering any subsequent auction invalid. The key principle laid down is that during the subsistence of a valid prior transfer order of a property, no subsequent auction of the same property can lawfully take place, and concurrent findings of fact regarding the genuineness of a transfer order will not be interfered with absent any misreading of evidence or error of law.
- Whether a subsequent auction of a property can validly take place during the subsistence of a prior transfer order?
- Can concurrent findings of fact regarding the genuineness of a property transfer be interfered with without showing misreading of evidence or violation of law?
ORDER
KARAM ELAHEE CHAUHAN, J.-This is a petition against an order dated 5-12-1979, passed in an Inter-Court Appeal by a Division Bench of the High Court, whereby an order dated 3-6-1979 of a Single Judge, dismissing Writ Petition No. 576-R of 1979 was maintained. The dispute in this case is about a small piece of land bearing No. E/1937, situated in Koocha Chak Talian inside Lohari Gate, Lahore. To avoid the unnecessary details and confining our--selves to the strict relevant facts it may be mentioned that the Deputy Settle--merit Commissioner by his order dated 12-5-1979, after going through all the attending facts and detailed history of the case held that this plot had been rightly transferred to Muhammad Yasin, respondent No. 2, herein on 23-5-1960. The petitioner claims this property on the basis of an auction which was held long after the aforesaid transfer on 30-12-1970, in favour of one Mumtaz Khan with whom the petitioner associated later.
Learnedcounsel has argued that the transfer order dated 23-5-1960, in favour of therespondent was a bogus and fictitious order and therefore the auction in favourof his client in the circumstances should be considered to suffer from no infirmity. The contention has no merit. The question whether the transfer order in favour of the respondent concerned was genuine or fictitious is one of fact on which there are the concurrent findings of the High Court and the learned Deputy Settlement Commissioner that the aforesaid order was genuine and was quite operative in the field and as such during the subsistence of that order, no auction of the property could have validly taken place. Learned counsel could not point out any omission or misreading of evidence or violation of any principle of law to interfere with the view hereinbefore mentioned.
2. The result is that this is not a fit case for grant of leave to appeal.The petition is dismissed hereby.