LEGAL HEIRS OF LATE JUSTICE M.B. AHMAD comprising Mrs. Rafia Ahmad and others vs DEPUTY LAND COMMISSIONER, HYDERABAD and others
This appeal by leave of the Supreme Court is directed against a High Court judgment that accepted a review petition and modified an earlier order to allow the appellants to retain land under a notification regarding tractor ownership. Leave was granted to examine whether the review petition was barred by time. The Supreme Court noted that although the review petition was delayed by four days and the objection of limitation was not pressed below, the Court will not exercise its jurisdiction in aid of injustice or interfere with a just order on the merits. The Court observed that the case of the late appellant was covered by the relevant notification and the review order correctly applied the applicable law. Citing consistent practice not to interfere with legally just orders despite technical limitations, the appeal was dismissed.
- Will the Supreme Court interfere with a review order on the ground of limitation when the resulting order is just on merits?
- Can an error resulting from a failure to draw the court's attention to an applicable notification be corrected in review jurisdiction?
1. ' NASIM HASAN SHAH, J.--This appeal, by leave of this Court, is directed against the judgment of the High Court dated 29-11-1981, whereby it accepted the review petition filed by the respondents against its earlier order dated 14-5-1981 and modified the said judgment to the extent that the appellants - shall be entitled to retain the land on account of owning a tractor in terms of para. 5 of the notification dated 17-7-1972.
2. Leave was granted on the ground that the review petition filed by the respondents against the judgment of the High Court dated 14-5-1981 was clearly barred by time.
3. ' We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and the learned Advocate-General, Sind on behalf of the respondents. The latter concedes that the review petition was barred by 4 days but submits that as this objection was not raised before the Bench hearing the review petition and the order passed by the High Court is a just order insofar as it has corrected the part of its own order which was erroneous and substituted it with an order which is in conformity with the law that was in fact applicable, this Court should not interfere.
4. It is true that the objection that the review petition was barred by time was not pressed before the learned High Court although in the counter affidavit filed to the review petition it was, no doubt, generally averred that the petition is barred by laches. This Court, however, has held that it will not exercise its jurisdiction in aid of in-justice, and even where an appeal is likely to succeed on the question of limitation but the case is otherwise unjust on merits, it should not interfere in such circumstances.
5. It is an admitted position that the late Justice M.B. Ahmad was a Government servant and, therefore, his case was clearly covered by the notification relied upon by the High Court in its review order and on merits, the order passed in review is absolutely correct.
6. ' Mr. Muhammad Naseem on behalf of the appellants submitted that the earlier judgment was decided on the basis of para. 8 of the relevant M.L.R. And being a conscious decision should not have been interfered with in exercise of the review jurisdiction.
7. ' On the other hand it is submitted that the High Court's attention was not drawn to para. 10 of the said M.L.R. Nor was its attention adverted to the notification in question although the provisions there of really governed the matter and an error occasioned by such an omission could be corrected in review jurisdiction.
8. Be that as it may, in view of the consistent practice of this Court not to interfere in cases where a just order has been passed (see Tufail Muhammad and others v. Raja Muhammad Zia Ullah Khan, Claims Commissioner, Lahore and another PLD 1965 SC 269 and Begum Shams-un-Nisa v. Said Akbar Abbasi and another PLD 1982 SC 413, no interference is called for in this appeal.
9. ' The upshot is that this appeal is dismissed but the parties are left to bear their own costs.