MUSHTAQ AHMAD Versus THE ADMINISTRATOR, RESIDUAL PROPERTY AND OTHERS
The petitioner sought leave to appeal against a Lahore High Court judgment dismissing his writ petition. The dispute concerned the transfer of a Deorhi and courtyard forming part of a composite building comprising shops on the ground floor and a residential unit on the first floor. The petitioner, who was transferred a shop on the ground floor, asserted that the Deorhi and courtyard were included in his original transfer order dated 4-4-1973, making them unavailable for subsequent transfer to respondent No. 3. However, both the Deputy Administrator and the Administrator, Residual Property, concluded that only the shop consisting of two rooms was transferred to the petitioner and that he lacked physical possession of or link to the Deorhi and courtyard. The Lahore High Court declined to interfere with these concurrent factual findings. The Supreme Court upheld the High Court's decision, holding that factual findings regarding physical possession and scope of transfer orders cannot be re-agitated where unsupported by the initial transfer record. The leave petition was accordingly dismissed.
- Whether concurrent findings of fact regarding physical possession and the scope of a property transfer order can be interfered with in extraordinary writ jurisdiction?
- Can a claim to additional property be sustained if the initial transfer order contains no mention of such property?
ORDER
M. S. H. QURAISHI, J.-The petitioner seeks leave to appeal from the judgment of the Lahore High Court dated 24-1-1982, whereby his writ petition, filed to challenge the rejection of his plea for transfer of a Deorhi and courtyard by the Administrator, Residual Property, was dismissed.
2.The Deorhi and the courtyard in question form part of a composite building, the ground-floor of which comprises, besides the Deorhi and courtyard, a number of shops. The first-floor is a residential unit. The shops had been transferred in favour of their respective occupants, including petitioner Mushtaq Ahmad, while the residential portion on the first-floor to Abdul Ghafoor respondent No, 3, by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner on 4-4-1973. Later on the application of Abdul Ghafoor, the Deorhi and the courtyard were transferred in his favour by the Deputy Administrator, Residual Property, on 8-8-1979. The petitioner applied for impleadment in the proceeding before the Deputy Administrator but his application was rejected. He filed a revision petition which was dismissed by the Administrator on 28-9-1980, against which he had moved the writ petition.
3.The case of the petitioner was that the Deorhi and the courtyard had already stood transferred in his favour by the initial transfer order of 4-4-1973 and that as no portion of the ground-floor had remained available, the question of the transfer of the Deorhi and the courtyard in favour of Abdul Ghafoor did not arise. The Deputy Settlement Commissioner's order dated 4-4-1973, by which all the shops had been transferred to their respective occupants speaks, of only "shop having two rooms" having been transferred to the petitioner. There is no mention there that the Deorhi and the courtyard had also been transferred to him. Both the Deputy Administrator and the Administrator, Residual Property, had come to the view that only the shop had been transferred to the petitioner and that he was not in physical possession of or had any link with the Deorhi and the courtyard. With these findings of fact the High Court had rightly declined to interfere.
4.We, therefore, find no merit in this petition which we accordingly dismissed.