Mst. SAKINA BI And Another vs THE ADDITIONAL DISTRICT JUDGE And Other
This matter arises from a challenge to an order passed by the Additional District Judge, which accepted a revision petition and allowed the amendment of a trial court judgment and decree dated 16-5-1952 under Section 152 of the Code of Civil Procedure 1908 to incorporate an omitted mutation number. The petitioners challenged this amendment before the High Court via writ jurisdiction, contending that an amendment introduced via Section 2-A of the West Pakistan Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Act, 1962 by Ordinance XIII of 1983 rendered the original declaratory decree ineffective, thereby depriving the Additional District Judge of jurisdiction to correct it. The Supreme Court of Pakistan held that the correction of a clerical or accidental omission in a decree through amendment does not alter its underlying legal efficacy; if the decree has indeed become inoperative by virtue of statutory amendments, a corrected decree stands on no higher footing than an uncorrected one. The Court affirmed that the question of the decree's efficacy remains distinct from the correction of the judgment, and dismissed the petition.
- Can a court amend a judgment and decree under Section 152 of the Code of Civil Procedure 1908 to include a mutation number omitted from the text?
- Does the correction of a clerical omission in a decree affect the substantive legal efficacy of that decree under subsequent statutory amendments?
- Section 152, Code of Civil Procedure 1908
- Section 2-A, West Pakistan Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Act 1962
- Ordinance XIII of 1983
ORDER
M.S.H. QURAISHI, J.--A gift of land made on 12-5-1951 in favour of the petitioner by their mother, a limited owner, under Mutations Nos.2930 and 2942, dated 17-5-1951, was challenged by Bagh Ali and others (predecessors-in-interest of the respondents) through a declaratory suit. The suit was decreed on 16-5-1952 and the gift in dispute-was held to be void. The judgment, however, made mention only of Mutation No.2930 although the title clearly cited both the mutations. An application was made by Bagh Ali etc. On 14-12-1972 under section 152, C.P.C. For amendment of the judgment and the decree but the same was rejected on 1-10-1976, whereupon they filed a revision petition which was accepted by the Additional District Judge, Rawalpindi, on 17-1-1984, in the result of which the other mutation, that is, No.2942, was also incorporated in the-trial Court's Judgment- The petitioners challenged the order of the Additional District Judge in the writ jurisdiction of the High Court but their petition was dismissed by the impugned order dated 3-4-1984.
2. The contention of learned counsel for the petitioners is that in view of the amendment made 'in the West Pakistan Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Act, 1962, by Ordinance XIII of 1983, whereby a new section 2-A was inserted, the decree passed by the trial Court had become ineffective and as such the Additional District Judge had no jurisdiction to order any correction in the same. This point had been raised before and dealt with by the High Court in the following words: "But whether the decree itself has any legal effect or not is a question which remains unaffected by the amendment of judgment and the direction of the learned Additional District Judge ordering amendment in the judgment obviously will not effect the rights, if any, which the petitioners claim under section 2-A of the Act of 1962 which has been introduced by Ordinance XIII of 1983."
3. Obviously, if the decree passed on 16-5-1952 had, by virtue of section 2-A of the Act, lost its efficacy, the position would not get altered by a correction made in the same because the position of the corrected decree would be no better than the uncorrected one. The question whether the decree had become inoperative was, however, and rightly so, left open by the High Court. We thus find no merit in this petition which we hereby dismiss.