GHULAM MUHAMMAD Versus MEMBER, BOARD OF REVBNUE

ORDER

1. Leave to appeal has been sought in these two petitions from the judgments of the Lahore High Court dated 27-4-1986 and 7-6-1986; whereby the High Court declined to exercise Constitutional jurisdiction in favour of the petitioners so as to grant their prayer in two separate cases arising out of allotment and cancellation of rural agricultural land under the rural persons (Land Settlement) Laws.

2. The allotment of land in each of these cases to the petitioners was cancelled by the Settlement Authorities on Mukhbari application filed by the respondent-sides. The petitioners challenged the cancellation and went up to the Supreme Court in pursuance of the challenge but without any success. The cancellation of land from their name was upheld by the Supreme Court. Not having been satisfied they sought the transfer of the land on the ground that they remained in possession notwithstanding the cancellation thereof, from their name. They have been denied this benefit on the ground that the land having been cancelled and unearthed by the efforts of the informers the latter were more entitled to its transfer than the petitioner from whose names it was cancelled. In one of the cases C.P.No.571 of 1986 in support of the said view the High Court also relied on Shah Nawaz v. Member, Board of Revenue P L D 1978 S C 266 and Nazir Ali v. Syed Shahzad Nazir and others 1981 S 0 M R 695.

3. Learned counsel appearing in Petition No.571 of 1986 has argued that the law which conferred powers on the Settlement Authorities to allot land to the informers was no doubt retrospective but the retrospectivity in actual application could not be extended to remote past and because the cancellation of land from the petitioners' name took place more than two decades ago, therefore, it had lost its efficacy by efflux of time.

4. To say least the argument is extraordinary and does not deserve any serious attention. The orders passed in favour of the informers and upheld up to the Supreme Court cannot be nullified on the basis of the arguments advanced by the learned counsel. When the law in question is held to be retrospective there can be hardly any justification for confining that retrospectivity bear limited time.

5. The learned counsel appearing in the other petition raised similar argument that land not having been resumed from the petitioner's name the informers could not take any benefit out of the orders of cancellation passed against the petitioners.

6. The submission is too hyper-technical to be given any importance. The cancellation of petitioners' allotment having been affirmed up to the Supreme Court there is no law or principle to deprive the informers of the due benefits simply because the Settlement B Authorities failed to pass a technical consequential order with regard to resumption. The assumption regarding absence of such an order has been made on the statement of the learned counsel. It is clarified that this should not be treated as a finding of fact by this Court.

7. With these remarks we find no force in either of these petitions. They are dismissed.

8. M. I. /G-60/S Petitions dismissed.