MFSSRS FAZALUR REHMAN MUHAMMAD IQBAL vs CHIEF SETTLEMENT
This matter concerns a petition for special leave to appeal against the dismissal of a writ petition regarding the transfer of an evacuee building. The petitioner, a non-claimant, initially failed to secure the transfer of the property, which was awarded to a claimant respondent. After his appeal against the transfer was dismissed in 1960, the petitioner did not pursue further remedies until he filed an application for suo motu revision, relying on a government memorandum concerning oil company properties. The core legal question was whether the petitioner, having failed to challenge the finality of the initial transfer order, possessed the locus standi to reopen the matter based on a subsequent memorandum. The Supreme Court held that the petitioner lacked standing, as his entitlement had been conclusively determined by the earlier unappealed order. Furthermore, the Court held that the memorandum conferred rights only upon oil companies, not individuals. Consequently, the Additional Settlement Commissioner lacked jurisdiction to entertain the petitioner's application. The principle laid down is that a party cannot reopen a settled matter regarding property entitlement once the initial adjudication has attained finality through failure to appeal.
- Does a party have locus standi to challenge a property transfer order after failing to appeal the initial decision regarding their entitlement?
- Can an individual assert rights under a government memorandum intended exclusively for oil companies?
- Does an Additional Settlement Commissioner have jurisdiction to entertain a revision application from a party who has no legal entitlement to the property in question?
- Section 20(4), Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act 1958
1. HAMOODUR RAHMAN, C. J.-The dispute in this petition for special leave to appeal is with regard to a double-storeyed evacuee building situated in Committee Bazar, Mandi Bahauddin, District Gujrat and bearing No. 7/2. It is a composite building consisting of two shops, four godowns and four residential flats. It was in occupation of various persons but only two, namely; the present petitioner and the respondent No. 5 applied for its transfer. The petitioner being a non-claimant submitted a N. C. S. Form but the respondent No. 5 being a claimant submitted a C. S. Form. On the 25th November 1959 the Deputy Settlement Commissioner gave the entire house to the respondent No.
5. Against this order the petitioner did not appeal, but on the 30th December 1959, submitted an application for being heard. This was rejected on the 9th January 1960 on the ground that the petitioner being a local was not entitled to get the property.
2. The petitioner then filed an appeal against the order of transfer of the property to respondent No. 5, which was passed on 25-11-1959 but this appeal was rejected by the Additional Settle--ment Commissioner on the 19th April 1960. It appears that the petitioner did not appear before the Additional Settlement Commissioner at the hearing of this appeal although the Additional Settlement Commissioner waited for him "till the fag-end of the day", as recorded in his order.
3. Against this order the petitioner did not take any further steps but after a Memorandum No. 9478-P I-Reh/60, dated 24-5-1960 relating to evacuee sites on which oil companies had constructed gasoline stations, petroleum depots, kerosene oil depots etc., had been issued, the petitioner on the 3rd of September 1960, put in an application described as an application under section 20, subsection (4) of the Displaced Persons (Compensa--tion and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958, before the Additional Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner for the suo motu revision of the order of transfer in favour of the respondent No. 5.
4. This application was made on the basis of a letter from the Standard Oil Company, authorizing the petitioner to apply in that behalf. Although the Additional Settlement Commissioner had been advised by the Settlement Commissioner (Policy) that such applications of individuals should not be entertained but they should be told to come up through the Oil Companies themselves, the Additional Settlement Commissioner modified the provisional Transfer Order issued in favour of the respondent No. 5 by excluding there from the portion which had been used as a petroleum depot and then directed the petitioner to request the Oil Company concerned to apply for it.
5. Respondent No. 5 challenged this order in revision and the Settlement Commissioner on the 18th February 1961, set aside the order on the ground that the Additional Settlement Commissioner had no jurisdiction to accept the application of the petitioner. A second revision filed by the petitioner was dismissed as being non-maintainable on the 30th June 1962.
6. The petitioner then invoked the writ jurisdiction of the High Court but that too was dismissed in limine. He went up in Letters Patent Appeal without any success. He now seeks special leave to appeal to this Court.
7. When it was pointed out to the learned counsel, appearing on his behalf that so far as the petitioner's entitlement to the transfer of the property was concerned that had become final by reason of the petitioner's failure to challenge the decision of the Additional Settlement Commissioner dismissing his appeal on the 19th April 1960, the learned counsel, contended that even so he had a right to be heard and could agitate that the property of a particular portion of it should not have been given to the respondent No. 5.
8. We ate unable to accept this contention, because, after the question of his entitlement was decided and he did not challenge that order, the petitioner had no longer any locus standi left to agitate the matter.
9. It is obvious that the right that was given by the Memorandum of the 24th May 1960, was not a right given to any individual but only to Oil Companies as such. The Additional Settlement Commissioner who modified the P. T. O. Of the respondent No. 5 realised this difficulty and hence, while making some sort of an interim order, asked the petitioner to request the Oil Company to move in the matter. This order was, therefore, rightly set aside by the Settlement Commissioner as the Additional Settlement Commissioner had no jurisdiction to make the same nor the petitioner had any right to claim the transfer on the basis of the above-mentioned Memorandum.
10. This was, if anything, a new right which the petitioner was seeking to assert by virtue of the Memorandum and not his entitlement to the property under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958. If the Memorandum gave him no such right, he acquired none and his application before the Additional Settlement Commissioner was rightly held to be misconceived.
11. This petition is without any substance and is, accordingly, dismissed.