1974 PLP 394 (SCMR)

Respondent Ghulam Ahmad is a non‑claimant and had occupied a portion of house No. 21/456. He filed a N. C. H. form for the transfer of house No. 21/456. Similarly, Hakim Shukar Elahi, Sain and Muhammad Isa, who bad occupied positions of the said house, had also applied for the transfer of the property. At first the Deputy Settlement Commissioner transferred house No: 21/508 to the appellant. Thereafter the appellant approached the Additional Settlement Commissioner for the transfer to him of the remaining units as well. The matter was endorsed to the Deputy Settlement Commissioner. Ultimately on the 27th of February 1960, the Deputy Settlement Commissioner transferred house No. 21/456 to the appellant as a part and parcel of house No. 21/508. Two separate appeals were filed from this order before the Additional Settlement Commissioner, one by respondent Ghulam Ahmad and the other by Hakim Shukar Elahi, and they were both dismissed on the 3rd of May 1960, and the order of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner dated the 27th of February 1960, giving the aforesaid two units Nos. 21/508 and 21/456 to the appellant as maintained. This decision was maintained up to the level of the Chief Settlement Commissioner. The main reason for holding that although property Nos. 21/456 and 21/508 stood on two different Khasra numbers they were one house was that the doors, windows and ventilators of the main house, i.e., No. 21/508 opened into house No. 21/456, and the two houses were interconnected. Respondent Ghulam Ahmad filed a writ petition and a learned Single Judge of the High Court, relied on the taxation register of Sialkot Municipality and the Municipal papers and held that although the two properties belonged to the same owner they were distinct and separate and formed independent residential units. According to the taxation record (Annexure `K') of the year 1943, it was found that house No. 21/456 con sisted of 13 rooms, and it bore a separate property number and was separately assessed to tax and the total annual rental was shown as Rs.

360. The property was shown separately in the taxation .register at Sr. No.

469. In the taxation register for the year 1944 (Annexure `L') the same particulars were repeated. A copy of the assessment register of property No. 21/508 (vide Annexure `P') showed the name of the owner as Sardar Baldev Singh and the name of the occupant as Lala Balvant Rai. It was, however, not clear what year this copy of the assessment register related to. Taking into consideration the documentary evidence, the learned Single Judge arrived at the finding that house No. 21/456 was separate and distinct from house No. 21/508 and other units and that the Settlement authorities had wrongly transferred house No. 21/456 to the appellant. The learned Single Judge found that respondent Ghulam Ahmad was in possession of two rooms of the property in dispute under the allotment order dated the 27th of April 1951, and that the appellant was unable to controvert this. The orders of the Settlement authorities transferring house No. 21/456 to the appellant were accordingly quashed. A Division Bench of the High Court dismissed the appellant's letters patent appeal and fully agreed with the findings arrived at b3 the learned Single Judge. The Division Bench has summed up the findings of the Additional Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner thus :- (i) That they were two properties though interconnected to some extent ; (ii) That house No. 21/508 was built first and house No. 21/456 was built subsequently for the use of the servants and cattle of the owner. The relevant tax registers referred to in the order of the learned Single Judge showed that the properties were indeed separate They were separate ly numbered and assessed and some of them were even occupied by different persons although both belonged to the same owner, namely, Sardar Baldev Singh. In the appellant's own document (Annexure 'P') house No. 21/508 was shown to be owned by Sardar Baldev Singh and was occupied by Lala Balvant Rai. On the contrary property No. 21/456 and No. 21/456 have been shown in Annexure `L' to have been owned by Sardar Baldev Singh, but while the latter was occupied by some different persons, the former was occupied by the owner himself. The appellant's own C. H. form also showed that he had of his own accord given up house bearing No. 21/456. He had also stated therein that a part of the house No. 21/456 had been allotted to Hakim Nabi Bakhsh. He bad also given the gross monthly rents of properties Nos. 21/507, 21/508 and 21/508‑A separately and the tax rate of property No. 21/456 separately. We accordingly find that the documentary evidence clearly established the fact that the two properties were separate and distinct and the High Court was right in arriving at this finding. This finding merely involved a simple exercise of considering certain documents and obvious facts, and arriving at an appropriate deduction, and it was well within the Constitu tional jurisdiction of the High Court to do so. In arriving at their findings the Settlement authorities had erroneously failed to keep in mind the observations of this Court in Civil Appeal No. 143 of 1933 decided on the 26th of June 1964, which are as follows :‑ "Even if some inconvenience is caused to the occupant of one house or the other, by the contiguity of the properties this circumstance cannot destroy the essential fact that the two houses are independent pre mises, in fact as in law. The view that prevailed with the Settlement authorities having been influenced by an erroneous deduction from facts which manifestly could not support such an inference, reduced to an arbitrary and illegal exercise of power and throw it open to review to writ jurisdiction by the High Court." We, accordingly, find no reason to interfere with the order of the High Court. The appeal is therefore dismissed but without any order as to costs. Appeal dismissed.