GHULAM HAIDER vs MUHAMMAD RASHID
The petitioner instituted a pre-emption suit regarding a land transaction recorded as a gift but alleged to be a sale. The trial court decreed the suit, but the appellate court set it aside, holding the transaction was not a sale. The petitioner filed a civil revision before the High Court, where counsel initially confined the petition to the question of whether the respondent was the petitioner's son, and the revision was admitted on that limited question alone. Subsequently, the petitioner filed a miscellaneous application seeking to incorporate new legal pleas. The High Court dismissed the application, reasoning that the previous limitation of grounds amounted to the rejection of other points and that no new pleas could be entertained. Aggrieved, the petitioner sought leave to appeal before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court held that allowing new pleas would amount to reviewing the earlier admission order without any formal review application or challenge. Consequently, the Supreme Court refused to grant leave to appeal and dismissed the petition, establishing that new grounds cannot be introduced to circumvent an earlier order admitting a revision on a limited question.
- Whether new pleas can be incorporated in a revision petition after it has been admitted to a full hearing on a limited question?
- Does granting permission to raise new pleas in a revision petition amount to a review of an earlier admission order?
- Can a party agitate omitted legal pleas without challenging or filing a review against a prior order limiting the scope of a civil revision?
ORDER
' M.S.H. QURAISHI, J.-- The petitioner had filed a suit to pre-empt a transaction of land which though according to the entry of the mutation was a gift but according to the petitioner, a sale and as such pre-emptible. The suit was decreed but on appeal the decree was set aside upon the view that the transaction was not proved to be in the nature of a sale. Aggrieved, the petitioner filed a civil revision before the High Court which came up before a learned Single Judge on 21-3-1983 and as the petitioner's counsel confined the petition only to the question of the correctness of the finding of the appellate Court that the respondent was a son of the petitioner, the revision petition was admitted to a full hearing to consider the said question only. Later, however, the petitioner moved a miscellaneous application (C.M. 1734/C/1983) stating that the grounds of the revision had been drafted in haste and important pleas of law going to the root of the case were omitted and seeking permission to incorporate for new pleas in the revision petition. The learned Judge dismissed the application on 6-4-1983 holding that on the previous date, the petitioner's counsel had raised the question of appreciation of the evidence of the prosecution witnesses but when it had been pointed out that believing or disbelieving of a witness was a question of fact and could not be agitated in revision, he had confined himself to the aforesaid limited question and that, therefore, there was no ground for permission to raise new pleas. In the result of the order, the revision remains pending hearing on the limited question for which it had been earlier admitted.
2. Aggrieved by the rejection of the miscellaneous application, the petitioner has moved this Court for leave to appeal. After hearing learned counsel, we feel that the permission sought for incorporating new pleas will amount to a review of the order, dated 21-3-1983, whereby the revision had been admitted on a limited question, thereby implying the dismissal of that petition on all other grounds. No application for such review had been filed nor had that order been challenged.
In the circumstance we do not find it a fit case for grant of leave. The petition is, therefore, dismissed.