MUHAMMAD AMIN AND OTHERS vs MUHAMMAD SULEMAN
The petitioners challenged a Peshawar High Court order that restored a Rent Controller's decision directing their ejectment from a property. The landlord had sought ejectment based on default in rent payment and the need for property reconstruction. While the first appellate court had reversed the Rent Controller's findings, the High Court reinstated them, finding no merit in the appellate court's reasoning regarding the nature of rent payments or the applicability of section 14 of the Rent Restriction Ordinance. Before the Supreme Court, the petitioners contended that the High Court failed to address a limitation issue regarding the Second Appeal. The Supreme Court held that the question of limitation, involving the timing of copy applications and appeal filing, constituted a mixed question of fact and law that could not be raised for the first time before the Supreme Court. Furthermore, citing precedent, the Court affirmed that a plea of limitation not pressed before the High Court cannot be re-opened at the appellate stage. Consequently, the petition for leave to appeal was dismissed.
- Can a plea of limitation be raised for the first time before the Supreme Court if it involves a mixed question of fact and law?
- Does the failure to press a plea of limitation before the High Court preclude a party from re-opening it before the Supreme Court?
- Section 14, Rent Restriction Ordinance
ORDER
' M. S. H. QURAISHI, 1.-The petitioners are aggrieved by the order, dated 11-6-1983 of the Peshawar High Court, whereby the respondent-landlord's Second Appeal from Order was accepted and in the result the order of the first appellate Court dismissing his ejectment petition was set aside and the order of the Rent Controller directing the petitioner's ejectment was restored.
2. The landlord had sought the ejectment of the petitioners on two grounds, namely, (1) default in payment of rent from December, 1978, and (2) reconstruction of the property. The relevant issues had been found by the Rent Controller in favour of the landlord but the first appellate Court had reversed the finding upon the view that as the landlord was in the habit of receiving rent amounts in lump sum for two or three months at a time, the non-payment for the period in question could not amount to wilful default and that the plea of reconstruction having been disallowed in an earlier ejectment proceeding the same was barred in the subsequent petition by section 14 of the Rent Restriction Ordinance. The High Court has given cogent reasons for disagreeing with the first appellate Court and we find no justification for interfering with the same.
3. Learned counsel, however, raised the question of the limitation of the Second Appeal before the High Court. The impugned order is silent about it but he submitted that the point had been raised but it had not been adverted to by the High Court. He urged that the question being one of law, he could even otherwise raise it for the first time before this Court. For the determination of the point raised, it is necessary to ascertain when the application for copy of the order of the first appellate Court had been made, when the same had been received and when the Second Appeal had been instituted. The question, therefore, is at best a mixed one of fact and law and, therefore, cannot be permitted to be raised for the first time before this Court. We also see no reason why the High Court should not have adverted to it, had it been raised before it. In Ghulam Muhammad v. Abdul Qadir Khan this Court had ruled that the plea of limitation which though earlier raised but had not been pressed before the High Court, could not be re-opened before the Supreme Court.
4. The petition for leave to appeal thus being without merit is hereby dismissed. PLD 1983 SC 68
Cited by 1 case
- BASEER AHMED SIDDIQUI vs SHAMA AFROZE 1985 CLC 1711