P L D (Rev (PLP)

All Assistant and Extra Assistant Commissioners, who are Magistrates of the 2nd or 1st Class are ex‑officio Assistant Collectors, 1st grade, under Notification No. 2000, dated the 17th January, 1931. There is, therefore, no impropriety in an Additional District Magistrate receiving revenue appeals on behalf of the Collector during the latter's absence. As Collectors and their Assistants are touring officers, the rules and the Act have not prescribed any rigid procedure for the presentation of appeals during their absence from headquarters. B. Z. Kaikaus, for Applicants. Bashir Ahmad, for Respondent. INAM‑UR‑RAHIM, F. C.‑

I have heard the learned counsel for the applicants and respondents. The point at issue in these four petitions for revision is a simple one. The order of the Assistant Collector (Naib Tahsildar) in Mutation No .1840 of village Nurpur Shahan, Tahsil and District Rawalpindi, was passed on 22nd September, 1943. An appeal against this order was presented in the Court of the Collector Rawalpindi on 19th October, 1943. The order sheet on that date is signed by Additional District Magistrate. It is argued by the learned counsel for the applicant that section 13 (a) of the Land Revenue Act lays down that an appeal shall lie from an original or appellate order of a Revenue Officer to the Collector when the order is made by an Assistant Collector of either grade. It is contended that the phraseology used in this section means that the appeal must be presented to the person ho at that particular time held the office of Collector, Rawalpindi, and to nobody else. It is further argued that as the appeal was presented o an officer other than the Collector its presentation on 19th October 1943, did not constitute proper presentation, and, that, therefore the appeal became time‑barred. The order sheet shows that the appeal presented to the Additional District Magistrate on 19th October, 1943, by the counsel for the appellant reached the Collector on 25th October. 1943, who ordered on that date that the appeal be registered. The copy of the Assistant Collectors order which was filed with the appeal bears an endorsement from the Copying section which makes it clear that the application for the grant, of a copy was filed on 30th September, 1943, and that a copy was completed on 4th October, 1943. As provided in section 12 (2) of Indian Limitation Act read with section 153 of the Land Revenue Act, in computing the period of limitation the appellant is entitled to deduct the time spent in obtaining a copy of the order appealed against. After excluding five days taken in obtaining the copy of the order appealed against the limitation for filing the appeal in the Collectors Court would have expired on 27th October, 1943. Actually the appeal was laid before the Collector on 25th October, 1943 and was, therefore within time even according to the narrow interpreta tion of section 13 (a) which the counsel for the applicant has urged before me.

2. As regards the question whether the presentation of the appeal to the Additional District Magistrate in the absence of the Collector was improper presentation, the Collector Rawalpindi has reported that according to the prevailing practice in Rawalpindi district appeals against orders of revenue officers are presented to the Duty Officer when the Collector is away from headquarters. All Assistant and Extra Assistant Commissioners, who are Magistrates of the 2nd or 1st Class are ex‑officio Assistant Collectors, 1st grade, under Notification No. 2000, dated the 17th January, 1931. There is, therefore, no impropriety in all Additional District Magistrate receiving revenue appeals on behalf of the Collector during the latter's absence. As Collectors and their Assistants are touring officers, the rules and the Act have not prescribed any rigid procedure for the presentation of appeals during their absence from headquarters. The practice in vogue in Rawalpindi district does not place the litigants under any handicap and as it does not contravene any express provision of the Act and the rules, there is no jurisdiction for holding it to be improper.

3. The four applications for revision are hereby rejected. K. M. A. Revision rejected.