MANZOOR HUSSAIN AND Others vs SAJAWAL AND Other

ORDER

KARAM ELAHEE CHAUHAN, J.-In a pre-emption suit the plaintiffs applied for amendment of the plaint and submitted that as the original suit land has undergone a change in consolidation proceedings of the village and in its place the vendees have been given some other land, therefore, plaint may be allowed to be amended so as to include the aforesaid other land therein, because, according to them instead of the original land, decree might be passed against the land taken by the vendees in lieu of the original land. The permission to amend the plaint was granted by the learned Civil Judge on 29-10-1974 on payment, of costs of Rs. 100 to the defendants.

2. The defendants/petitioners filed a revision being Civil Revision No. 69 of 1975 but without any success as the same was dismissed by a learned Single Judge of the Lahore High Court on 22-4- 1975.

3. The defendants/petitioners have come up in a petition for special leave to appeal against the same to this Court. The petition is barred by one day and an application has been filed for extension of time on the ground that the Clerk of the counsel could not collect the copy from the copying branch of the High Court because he had no intimation about the date of the preparation of the copy. Generally according to High Court practice a notice is affixed outside the copying branch on each day indicating the copies which are completed and it was for the Clerk concerned to watch that list. Similarly on the receipt issued for the supply of copy the office gives a tentative date as to when copy could be received by an applicant. In this case it has not been shown that the application of the Clerk did not appear in the list or that the copying branch had not given him any date or that copy was prepared beyond the date given. In these circumstances, we do not consider that there exists any, justification for condonation of delay.

4. Even otherwise on merits also the petitioners have no case. It w within the discretion of learned Civil Judge to allow or disallow the amendment prayed for and if he in his discretionary jurisdiction allowed the amendment, his order could not be said to suffer from any error of jurisdiction so as to warrant interference by the High Court in the exercise jurisdiction under section 115 of the C. P. C. In Qaim Din v. Said Ahmad and another (PLD 1967 Lab. 1171), it has been held that a pre-emptor can follow, the land which, the vendees may have obtained in lieu of the original land in consolidation proceedings. The amendment allowed by the learned Civil Judge, therefore, was quite in accordance with the law relevant on the subject, especially when the change in consolidation took place during the pendency of the present litigation between the parties. The order of, the High Court refusing to interfere in revision in the circumstances does not suffer from any illegality warranting grant of special leave to appeal against the same. The result is that this petition has no merit and is dismissed.