Mst. HUSSAN ARA BEGUM And Others vs Messrs Haji ALLAH DITTA BARKAT ALI
This matter concerns a petition for leave to appeal against a judgment of the Lahore High Court, which had dismissed a Constitutional Petition challenging an ejectment order passed by the District Judge, Gujrat, regarding a shop. The core legal question was whether the High Court erred in refusing to interfere with the District Judge's findings on the basis of alleged misreading of evidence. The Supreme Court held that the High Court's approach was correct, affirming that the High Court, in its Constitutional jurisdiction, is not required to reappraise evidence or scrutinize the weight attached to different pieces of evidence by the lower appellate court, especially when the lower court has already discussed the evidence in full. The Court clarified that 'misreading' cannot be used as a misnomer for mere disagreement with the conclusions drawn from evidence. Consequently, the petition was dismissed, though the Court granted the petitioners liberty to institute a fresh petition based on new grounds, such as default and personal requirement, arising from subsequent developments.
- Can the High Court, in its Constitutional jurisdiction, reappraise evidence or scrutinize the weight attached to evidence by a lower appellate court?
- Does the allegation of 'misreading' of evidence allow for the reappraisal of evidence in a Constitutional petition?
- Is a party entitled to file a fresh petition if new grounds, such as default and personal requirement, arise after the dismissal of a previous petition?
ORDER
1. MUHAMMAD AFZAL ZULLAH, J.--Leave to appeal has been sought from judgment, dated 20-2-1983 of the Lahore High Court; whereby a Constitutional Petition filed by the petitioners (regarding ejectment of respondent No. 1 from a shop) against the judgment passed by the District Judge, Gujrat, was dismissed.
2. Learned counsel has assailed the decision of the High Court on the ground that the evidence has not been properly read or it has been ignored.
3. The same argument was repelled by the High Court by the following observation:-- "In this case misreading has been used as a misnomer for erroneous appreciation of evidence since all the times the learned counsel has addressed as to the conclusions from the evidence. The matter has been decided by the learned District Judge after discussing the full evidence. Now what particular weight has been attached by him to different pieces of evidence is not the job of this Court to scrutinize."
4. The approach of the High Court is unexceptionable. It has rightly refused to reappraise the evidence in its Constitutional jurisdiction. This petition fails and is accordingly dismissed.
5. However, the petitioners would be at liberty to institute fresh petition on grounds including of default and personal requirement; because as stated, new situations have arisen regarding these grounds. With these observations leave to appeal is refused.