P L D 1962 (W (PLP)

SHABIR AHMAD, J.‑This petition by Hakim Abdul Majid Shah, a resident of Kot Adhu, District Muzaffargarh, seeks a writ of mandamus directing the Claims Commissioner, Pakistan, the sole respondent in the petition, to verify the claim of the petitioner with regard to the property left by him in India.

2. The facts alleged in the petition are that the petitioner had put in his claim under the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Ordinance, 1955, to the effect that he had left property, consisting of one house and two shops, in Ganor, District Rohtak, which is now in India, and that the value of the house was Rs. 25,000 and of the two shops Rs. 15,

000. The assertion of the petitioner that Ganor, which was his original home, was an urban area was not accepted and instead it was treated as a rural area. The Claims Officer of Muzaffargarh, by his order dated the 5th of July 1956, held that the value of the property left by the petitioner in Ganor was less than Rs. 10,000 and, therefore, he was not entitled to have his claim registered under the relevant law. The petitioner appealed against the order of the Claims Officer to the Deputy Claims Commissioner and Khan Saeed‑ud‑Din, the then Deputy Claims Commissioner, Multan, held that the value of the property left by the petitioner in Ganor was about Rs. 5,536 and therefore, his claim could not be registered under the relevant provisions of the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Act (III of 1956), which had replaced the Ordinance of 1955. Against the order of the Deputy Claims Commissioner, the petitioner went up in revision to the Additional Claims Commissioner and Mr. Farzand Ali Khan, who was then holding that post, remanded the case for fresh decision. On remand, the case was heard by Mr. Irfan Ahmad Ansari, Claims Officer, Muzaffargarh, who held that the value of the property left by the petitioner was Rs. 9,400 and as that amount was less than Rs. 10,000, the claim of the petitioner could not be registered under Act III of 1956. This order, which was passed by Mr. Irfan Ahmad Ansari on the 12th of January 1959, did not take into consideration the value of the land underneath the buildings though the claim of the petitioner with regard to his being owner of the property had been held to be correct. Against the order of Mr. Irfan Ahmad Ansari, an appeal was lodged by the petitioner, which was heard by Mr. Nasir Ali Tirmizey, the then Deputy Claims Commissioner, Multan, who rejected it. Mr. Tirmizey had in his order come to the conclusion that the value of the buildings granted to the petitioner was excessive, but he calculated the value of the land under the buildings and coming to the conclusion that the value was less than Rs. 10,000 dismissed the appeal. Against the order of Mr. Tirmizey, the petitioner filed an application for revision, which was heard by Mr. Muhammad Azhar, Additional Claims Commissioner, Multan, who by his order dated the 13th of November 1959, held that the Deputy Claims Commissioner had assessed the claim of the petitioner rather liberally in allowing Rs. 3 per square foot for cost of construction, because the buildings were very old and that the value of the buildings and the land underneath them was less than Rs. 8,000 which had been fixed by Mr. Tirmizey. Against the order of Mr. Muhammad Azhar, Additional Claims Commis sioner, Multan, dated the 13th of November 1959; the petitioner presented another application for revision, which was heard by Mr. Muhammad Hanif Siddiqi, Claims Commissioner, Pakistan, Lahore, who dismissed the petition on the 28th of November 1960. It appears from the order of Mr. Muhammad Hanif Siddiqi, which Is on the record as annexure `D' to the petition, that the only point raised before him was that Ganor, where the property left by the petitioner was situate, was a town but had been wrongly held to be a rural area by the subordinate Claims Authorities who had dealt with the case. The Claims Commissioner did not accept the contention raised on behalf of the petitioner that Ganor was a town.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner urged that Mr. Tirmizey, Deputy Claims Commissioner, who had on the 9th of June 1959 dismissed the appeal against the order of Mr. Irfan Ahmad Ansari, Claims Officer, acted beyond his jurisdiction in holding that the price of the buildings had been fixed at a higher rate by the Claims Officer than it should have been. The con tention regarding the lack of jurisdiction of the Deputy Claims Commissioner was based on the fact that no appeal against the order of the Claims Officer had been instituted before him by anyone but the petitioner and according to the learned counsel for the petitioner Mr. Tirmizey could not have reduced the value of the building fixed by the Claims Officer. I find no force in this contention. Under the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Act, 1956, as well as under the Ordinance repealed by the Act, the only person who could file an appeal was the claimant whose claim had been adjudicated upon, and I fail to see who else could have lodged an appeal with a view to having it held that the price of the buildings had been fixed at an excessive rate. Learned counsel for the petitioner added that if Mr. Tirmizey, Deputy Claims Commissioner, felt that the price of the building had been fixed at a higher rate than it should have been, he could have referred the case to the Claims Commissioner for passing an appropriate order in the exercise of revisional jurisdiction but was himself incompetent to express the view that any part of the order of the Claims Officer was wrong to the benefit of the claimant. The line of argument adopted by learned counsel for the petitioner could have availed the petitioner if the operative part of the order of the Claims Officer had, on an appeal instituted by the petitioner, been changed to his prejudice. The operative part of the order of the Claims Officer was that the value of the rural property on the basis of which the petitioner had put in his claim was less than Rs. 10,000 with the result that the claim could not be registered, and the operative part of the order of the Deputy Claims Commissioner was to the same effect. Consequently the fact that the Deputy Claims Commissioner had valued the build ings left by the petitioner in India at a rate lower than that at which the Claims Officer had valued them did not in any manner change the operative part of the order passed by the Clams Officer, namely that the claim could not be registered. I am clear in my mind that if the operative part of an order appealed against is not altered to the prejudice of the person who had sought redress by means of an appeal the fact that the decision of the appellate authority proceeds on grounds different to those on which the order appealed from proceeded is entirely immaterial unless a binding provision of law limits the powers of the appellate tribunal in such a way that it has to take as correct even the reasoning employed in the order appealed against.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner supported his conten tion that Mr. Tirmizey, Deputy Claims Commissioner, could not have gone into the proper value of the building when considering the appeal of the petitioner wherein it had been asserted that the Claims Officer had erred in not including the value of the land when considering the claim of the petitioner by reference to a provision contained in the Manual of Instructions for the use of the officers of the Claims Organization. It is not known who had Issued the Instructions but as they are contained in a book entitled "Manual of Instructions for the Officers of the Claims Organization" which was published in 195 7 under the authority of the Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Rehabilitation, I will assume that the Instructions were Issued by an authority competent to issue them. The reliance of learned counsel for the petitioner was on paragraph 8 of Part VII of the above‑named Instructions which part bears the heading "Deputy and Additional Claims Commissioners (Appeals)". The paragraph relied upon by learned counsel for the petitioner occurs at page 52 of the above‑mentioned book and. reads as under: ‑ "Procedure‑Hearing on appeal shall be very brief and restricted to the grounds urged." In my view the above‑reproduced paragraph means that an appellant should not ordinarily be allowed to urge matters not agitated in the grounds of appeal. If the contention of learned counsel for the petitioner were taken to its logical end, the result of the above‑reproduced paragraph 8 would be that even if an appellate Claims Authority felt that the reasoning employed in the order appealed against for giving a decision were incorrect it had to close its eyes to the defect and had to proceed on the assumption that the defect did not exist. I have Indicated already that under the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Act, 1956, just as under the Ordinance which the Act had repealed, a right of appeal vested only in the claimant and if the contention of learned counsel for the petitioner regarding the effect of the above‑reproduced paragraph 8 were to be accepted the result could be that if a Claims Officer had committed a patent error in calculation the appellate authority could not correct It to the prejudice of the appellant. This result would be so foreign to any system which aims at doing justice that I would be un willing to assume that it was intended unless on account of the plain language used in a binding law or rules, I were left no choice n the matter. At best, the paragraph under consideration can be treated as a rule regarding the powers of Deputy Claims Commis sioners and Additional Claims Commissioners when hearing appeals, and would have a binding force only if it did not run counter to the statute under which it was made. Those sections of the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Ordinance, 1955 and the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Act, 1956, which deal with appeals do not take away from the Appellate Claims Authorities the ordinary powers of an appellate authority to uphold the decision appealed against on grounds other than those on which the order appealed against was based and consequently I am not prepared to accept the contention of learned counsel for the petitioner that Mr. Tirmizey, Deputy Settlement Commissioner, Multan, should have directed the registration of the claim of the petitioner by acting on the assump tion that the value of the buildings had been correctly calculated in the order appealed from and by adding to that value the value of the land which had not been taken into consideration by the Claims Officer in his order.

5. There is also another matter which goes against the case of the petitioner. I have mentioned in paragraph 2 that the petitioner had put in an application for revision before the Additional Claims Commissioner which was dismissed on the 13th of November 1959 by Mr. Muhammad Azhar, the then Additional Claims Commissioner, Multan, who had held that the value of the property left in India by the petitioner was less than Rs. 8,000, Rs. 8,000 being the value fixed by Mr. Tirmizey, Deputy Claims Commissioner, Multan. It was not denied by learned counsel for the petitioner and Indeed if he had done so he could not have hoped for success of his contention in that behalf‑that an officer of the Claims Department could in exercise of powers for revision if possessed by him, pass any order which the circum stances of the case demanded. It follows, therefore, that Mr. Muhammad Azhar, Additional Claims Commissioner, Multan, could have fixed the value of the property in question at less than Rs. 8,000 which he appears to have done, and his order could not be deemed to be invalid on the ground that while passing it the officer had not heard the petitioner. This would be so because the petitioner himself had applied to the officer for exercise of his powers of revision. Now, if the petitioner had not in his applica tion for revision attacked the order of Mr. Tirmizey, Deputy Claims Commissioner, Multan, on the ground that it had on an appeal lodged by the petitioner reduced the value of the building fixed by the Claims Officer, Muzaffargarh, the petitioner's prayer for a writ which is based on the assertion that Mr. Tirmizey, Deputy Claims Commissioner, Multan, could not have reduced the value of the buildings, cannot receive favourable consideration for the reason that the point was not raised before an authority which could hear an application for revision against the order of Mr. Tirmizey inspite of the fact that an application for revision was lodged before that officer. The grant of a writ in a case is discretionary and if a party has not chosen the ordinary remedy which the law provides a writ would not ordinarily issue in favour of that party. If, on the other hand, the petitioner had raised the question in his application for revision, then even no occasion for issue of a writ would arise because even if the Deputy Claims Commissioner was not competent to reduce the value fixed by the Claims Officer, it cannot be doubted that the Additional Claims Commissioner did not lack competency to do so. Learned counsel for the petitioner wanted that the order of Mr. Muhammad Azhar, Additional Claims Commissioner, Multan, to the effect that the value of the rural property left by the petitioner in India being less than Rs. 8,000 his claim could not be registered should be held to be invalid on the ground that it had done no more than confirm the order of Mr. Tirmizey Deputy Claims Commissioner, Multan, which order of the Deputy Claims Commissioner was, according to the learned counsel for the petitioner, devoid of all validity. This contention is without force because even if it be assumed that the order of Mr. Tirmizey, Deputy Claims Commis sioner, Multan was invalid on the ground that it reduced the value of the building fixed by the Claims Officers, the Additional Claims Commissioner being fully competent in the exercise of his powers of revision to reduce the value fixed by the Claims Officer, the order of the Additional Claims Commissioner could not be said to be void and inoperative on the ground that it was passed on an application presented to the Additional Claims Commissioner, Multan, by the petitioner himself.

6. In view of what I have said above, I would hold that the petition has no force and would dismiss it. As, however, the respondent was not represented at the hearing I would pass no order as to costs. SHAKIRULLAH JAN, J.‑I agree. A. H. Petition dismissed.