ALLAH BAKHSH vs Mst. FATHE BIBI
The present petition for special leave to appeal arises out of a property dispute over a house situated in Basti Qulwali, Chak Noor Shah, purchased by the respondent through a registered sale deed from the sons of Allah Ditta. The petitioner, who was in possession of the house, resisted the respondent's suit for possession by claiming ownership through a benami transaction and prior construction by his grandfather. The core legal question concerns the legality of the trial court's rejection of a belatedly produced document regarding the benami claim, and the validity of the concurrent findings of the lower courts. The Supreme Court held that the trial court's refusal to receive the document at a belated stage was fully in accordance with procedural law, and the concurrent findings regarding the respondent's ownership suffered from no illegality. Consequently, the Court laid down the principle that late production of documents without prior reliance at the earliest stage is rightly rejected under procedural rules, and concurrent findings of fact regarding ownership based on registered sale deeds will not be disturbed in the absence of legal infirmity.
- Whether a trial court is justified in refusing to receive a document in evidence when it was neither relied upon nor produced at the earliest stage of proceedings?
- Can concurrent findings of lower courts regarding ownership based on a registered sale deed be interfered with in the absence of illegality?
- Whether a defendant can successfully resist a suit for possession on the basis of an unpleaded and belatedly tendered benami document?
- Order XIII Rule 2, Civil Procedure Code 1908
ORDER
' SAAD SAOOD JAN, J.---The dispute in this petition for special leave to appeal relates to a house situate in Basti Qulwali, Chak Noor Shah. It was purchased by a registered deed dated 12-8-1981 by the respondent from the three sons of one Allah Ditta. It was in the possession of the petitioner. On 22-12-1981 the respondent filed a suit for possession of the house. She stated that the petitioner was living in it as a licensee on account of his relationship with the vendors for his sister was married to one of them. The suit was resisted by the petitioner. He alleged that the land underlying the house was purchased by the father of the vendors but the funds for the same were provided by his own grandfather. As such the father of the vendors was merely a Benamidar. He also alleged that the house was initially constructed by his own grandfather and that he had later re-built it in 1950.
2. The suit was decreed by the trial Court which rejected the plea of the petitioner that he was in possession of the house as owner in his own right. The petitioner's appeal before the Additional District Judge and the revision petition before the High Court remained unsuccessful. He now seeks leave to appeal from this Court.
3. The main grievance of the petitioner before us is that the trial Court has illegally rejected his prayer for receiving in evidence a document executed by the father of the vendors wherein he had admitted that he was holding the land merely as a Benamidar on behalf of the grandfather of the petitioner. It is to be noticed that the petitioner had neither relied upon this document nor produced it at the earliest stage of the proceedings. In the circumstances, the order of the trial Court rejecting his prayer to, receive the document in evidence at a belated stage was just in accordance with the provisions of Rule 2, Order XIII, Civil Procedure Code. It should, therefore, hardly be described as illegal.
4. After hearing the learned counsel for the petitioner we are not persuaded that the concurrent findings of the Courts below that the respondent was the rightful owner of the house on the basis of the sale made in her favour by the sons of Allah Ditta suffers from any illegality. Leave is refused.
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