MUHAMMAD IQBAL and others vs KHURSHID AHMAD
This matter arises from a petition for leave to appeal against concurrent orders of the lower courts and the High Court, which dismissed the petitioners' objections in execution proceedings regarding the ejectment of their mother from a residential property. The core legal question is whether an ejectment order passed against a mother living under the same roof is binding on her adult children who were omitted from the subsequent ejectment proceedings, and whether their late application for impleadment and subsequent objections are maintainable. The Supreme Court held that since the petitioners lived with the judgment-debtor under the same roof, shared identical interests without any conflict, and had all available defenses represented, the ejectment order was fully effective against them as well. The Court laid down the principle that an objection petition filed by family members residing together with the judgment-debtor under similar interests is in substance an objection on behalf of the judgment-debtor and does not impede the execution of an ejectment order.
- Whether an ejectment order passed against a mother is binding on her children living with her in the same property?
- Can family members residing under the same roof file independent objections in execution proceedings when their interests are identical to the judgment-debtor?
- Whether the omission of certain family members from an ejectment application invalidates the ejectment order against the occupant mother?
- Section 30, Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act 1958
- Order XXI Rule 97, Code of Civil Procedure 1908
- Order XXI Rule 99, Code of Civil Procedure 1908
- Order XXI Rule 100, Code of Civil Procedure 1908
ORDER
' M.S.H. QURAISHI, J.-- The petitioners and their mother Mst. Nasim Akhtar (heirs of Ali Muhammad) are occupants of a portion of House No,8, Krishana Gall No,4, Railway Road, Lahore. An application for their ejectment had been earlier instituted on 4-10-1961 by Hamidullah, the original transferee of the property, which they had resisted by denial of the existence of the relationship of landlord and tenant and want of service of notice under section 30 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958. The issue of relationship had been found against them, and although the matter had been litigated upto the High Court but the application had ultimately been dismissed by the Controller on 29-6-1971 for lack of proof of the service of notice under section 30.
Hamidullah died, whereafter his heirs sold the property to Khurshid Ahmad, present respondent, who instituted an ejectment application in 1977 only against Mst. Nasim Akhtar. At the arguments stage in this proceedings, the present petitioners made an application on 23-7-1979 for their impleadment but the same was rejecter' on 2-10-1979 with the observation that the order of ejectment, if any passed, would not affect their right. The proceeding ended in an order of ejectment passed on 29-10-1979 against Mst. Nasim Akhtar. She agitated the order in appeal and then in the constitutional jurisdiction of the High Court but failed. The present petitioners then challenged the ejectment order by a suit which was dismissed on 27-4-1981 as being premature.
When the execution proceedings were taken in hand, they filed another suit on 10-6-1981 for a declaration that they were owner of the property and for a permanent injunction. This suit, too, was dismissed with the observation that they could take their remedy before the executing Court. They accordingly moved an application on 3-12-1981 under Order XXI, rules 97, 99 and 100, C.P.C. But the same was rejected on 24-3-1982, against which their appeal and thereafter a revision in the High Court were rejected on 5-4-1982 and 4-12-1982, respectively. They have now sought leave to appeal.
2. It is urged on behalf of the petitioners that they had been party alongwith Mst. Nasim Akhtar in the earlier proceeding instituted by Hamidullah and that, therefore, their omission in the present ejectment proceeding was mala fide, that when they applied for impleadment, their application ought, to have been allowed and that in any case the ejectment order passed against Mst. Nasim Akhtar was not binding on them, moreso because of the express observation made in that regard by the Rent Controller while dismissing their impleadment application. In reply, it has been submitted on behalf of the respondent that the petitioners who were in all probability aware of the ejectment proceedings, had moved their application for impleadment belatedly in order only to prolong the proceedings and that as such their application had been rightly rejected. It is further submitted that as the proceedings had been instituted against their mother, whose interest was rot at variance with that of the petitioners and with whom the petitioners had been living in the property, the order of ejectment was effective against the petitioners too. For this, he relied on Khurshid Begum v. Ghulam Kubra 1982 SCMR 90.
3. The points raised on behalf of the petitioners had been duly considered but rejected by the Courts below. Their view was that the petitioners being the children of Mst. Nasim Akhtar, the judgment-debtor in the ejectment proceeding, and living with her in the same property, their application for implement, belated as it was, was meant to delay the proceeding. The High Court further held that the finding being one of fact could not even legally be challenged in revision. In the cited case of Mst. Khurshid Begum, where the case of ejectment had proceeded against Syed Saqlain Abid, an adult male member of the family, but an objection to the ejectment order had been taken by the other members of the family at the stage of execution, this Court had held that as the objectors had been living with the judgment-debtor in the same house under one roof and had no conflicting interest with him, the objection petition was "in substance an objection petition filed by the judgment-debtor and on his behalf by others". By analogy, the ruling applied to the present case. All the grounds available to the petitioners for resisting the ejectment proceeding had been available to Mst. Nasim Akhtar too. We, therefore, do not feel inclined to interfere. The petition is dismissed.