P L D 1963 (W (PLP)

Muhammad Ilyas Khan for Appellant. Khurshid Ahmad for Respondent No.

2. Dates of hearing : 5th, 6th and 7th February 1963. This order will dispose of Writ Petitions Nos. 1144/R of 1961 filed by Muhammad Sadiq, 1397/R of 1961 filed by Ilam Din, and 193/R of 1962 filed by Mst. Nabi-un-Nisa. The petitioners in all these three cases claim to be in occupation of property mentioned in the petitions which has since been transferred by the Settlement Department, to respondent No. 2 in the first case, to respondent No. 7 in the second case and to respondents Nos. 2 and 3 in the last case. The main ground raised in these petitions and pressed before me by learned counsel appearing for the peti tioners is that the property having since been acquired by the Lahore Improvement Trust, it could not have formed part of the compensation pool and, therefore, the Settlement Department had no lawful authority to transfer the same to the persons above named. I have also heard the learned counsel for the Lahore Improvement Trust.

2. Property No. E-547-S, parts of which are the subject- matter of the three writ petitions which are being disposed of by this order, is admittedly included in the Shah Alam Gate Development Scheme of the Lahore Improvement Trust. The Scheme was sanctioned by the Provincial Government under section 6 of the Punjab Development of Damaged Areas Act XIV of 1952 and by the West Pakistan Government's Notifica tion No. 2727-C & T-57, dated the 26th of August 1957, copies of which will be found annexed to the written statement filed by the Lahore Improvement Trust in Writ Petition No. 1397/R of 1961. Since parts of the property included in the Scheme and particularly the property mentioned above, which is the subject- matter of dispute in these writ petitions, was evacuee property, the Lahore Improvement Trust moved the Central Government for sanction to acquire the same. The Central Government vide their letter No. F-16 (13)/56-P-II, dated the 16th of May 1957 from the Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Rehabilitation, Karachi to the Secretary to Government of West Pakistan, Refugees and Rehabilitation Department, accorded their approval to the acquisition by the Government of West Pakistan under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, as modified by the Punjab Development of Damaged Areas Act, 1952 of evacuee property as per details shown in the Schedule attached to that letter and included in Lahore 14 Development Scheme. The Schedule attached to that letter admittedly includes the property in dispute.

3. Section 3 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and; Rehabilitation) Act, 1958 empowers the Government of West Pakistan to acquire such evacuee property, other than agricultural land, situated in the Province, as the Central Government may, require it, to acquire for any of the purposes of the aforesaid Act. This has to be done by notification in the official gazette. The relevant notification with regard to the evacuee property in Lahore is published at page 44 of the Manual of Settlement Law and Procedure. A perusal of this notification shows that "property for the acquisition or sale of which sanction of the Central Government under the Pakistan (Administration of Evacuee Property) Act, 1957 or under any law for the time being in force for the administration of evacuee property in Pakistan, has been accorded before the date of this Notification", was excluded from acquisition. This notification is dated the 21st of August 1959, and we have already seen that the Central Government had, acting under section 10(3)(b) of the Pakistan (Administration of Evacuee Property) Act, 1957 accorded its sanction for the acquisi tion of the property in dispute by the Government of West Pakistan for the purposes already mentioned above. The property in dispute, therefore, was never acquired under section 3 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, and the Settlement Authorities had, therefore, no power whatsoever to deal with it much less transfer it to anybody.

4. The orders of transfer passed by the Settlement Authorities regarding property No. E-547-S, situated in Mohallah Pari Mahal, inside Shah Alam Gate, Lahore, which is the subject-matter of these writ petitions, were entirely without lawful authority and are hereby quashed. There will, however, be no order as to costs. K. B. A./A. H. Petition accepted.