P L D 1961 (W (PLP)

Provided that the Claims Commissioner shall not under this subsection pass an order revising or modifying any order affecting any person without giving such person an opportunity of being heard." No other provision of the Act deals specifically with powers of revision and if section 7 stood alone the argument of the learned counsel for the petitioners to the effect that an Additional Claims Commissioner cannot pass an order in revision would be unassailable. But there is another section in the Act which has relevancy. This section is section 17, the second subsection of which is in the following terms :‑ "Subject to the provisions of this Act and the rules made thereunder, a Claims Commissioner may delegate all or any of his powers under this Act to any Additional Claims Commissioner as may be specified by him." This subsection clearly means that if the powers to revise orders of subordinate Claims Authorities are delegated by the Claims Commissioner to an Additional Claims Commissioner, the latter officer can exercise the powers of revision. The learned counsel for the petitioners urged that as the Act conferred powers of revision on the Claims Commissioner alone, the delegation of those powers to an Additional Claims Commissioner would contravene the provisions of the Act and be, therefore, in con?travention of subsection (2) of section 17 itself which says in clear terms that the delegation was to be subject to the provisions of the Act and the Rules made thereunder. I am clear in my mind that this contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners is without force. It will be noticed that the only provision of the Act which gives the Claims Commissioner any specific powers is section 7 of the Act. Section 17 and section 7 of the Act were brought on the statute book by the same Legislature and it may be presumed that when considering section 17 of the Act, the Legislature knew that section 7 existed. The intention of the Legislature clearly was that the powers of revision conferred on the Claims Commissioner by subsection (3) of section 7 of the Act could be delegated to an Additional Claims Commissioner under subsection (2) of section 17 of the Act. From a report sent by the Claims Commissioner, it is clear that on the 5th of January 1959, the Claims Commissioner delegated powers of revision to all the Additional Claims Commissioners in West Pakistan. Mianwali and Sargodha Districts were within the jurisdiction of the Additional Claims Commissioner, Sargodha, and, therefore, his order cannot be considered to be without binding force on the ground that it was passed by an authority which had no jurisdiction to pass it.

5. I will now take up the second of the above‑mentioned two contentions of the learned counsel for the petitioners. It will be noticed that the Act has not fixed any time within which powers of revision could be exercised by the Claims Commis?sioner and all that is said in the Act is that the power of revision could be exercised within the prescribed period. The word "prescribed" is defined by subsection (4) of section 2 of the Act to mean prescribed by Rules made under the Act. The relevant rule is rule 6 of the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Rules, 1955, hereinafter referred to as the Rules, which appeared in the Gazette of Pakistan dated the 6th of April 1955, as Notification No. 2 (2)/55 R. S. dated the 1st of April 1955. By Notification No. 2 (32)/56/‑R. S. dated the 16th of November 1956, which appeared in the Gazette of Pakistan dated the 23rd of November 1956, a proviso was added to sub‑rule 2 (a) of rule 6 which sub‑rule had been inserted by Notification No. 2(2)/55. R. S. dated the 15th of May 1956, which appeared in the Gazette of Pakistan Extraordinary dated the 15th of May 1956. At the time when the impugned order was passed, rule 6 of the Rules read as under :‑ ?(1) An appeal against an order passed by a Claims Officer or a Deputy Claims Commissioner under subsection (2) of section 6 of the Ordinance shall be made within thirty days of the date of such order. (2) An application for review under subsection (4) of section 7 of the Ordinance shall be made within thirty days of the order sought to be reviewed, but the Claims Commissioner or the Additional or Deputy Claims Commissioner may review his own order suo moto within ninety days of the date of such order. (2‑A) A Claims Commissioner may under subsection (3) of section 7 of the Act call for the record of any case within ninety days of the date of publication of this sub‑rule, or the date on which the case has been decided by a Claims Officer, a Deputy Claims Commissioner or an Additional Claims Commissioner, whichever date be later Provided that the Claims Commissioner may, if he deems fit, call for the record of any case after the said ninety days. (3) The provisions of sections 4, 5 and 12 of the Limitation Act, 1908 (1X of 1908) or similar provisions in any other enactment relating to limitation in force for the time being in the area in which an application is presented, shall apply, as far as may be, in computing the period of limitation prescribed in sub‑rules (1) and (2) above." The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners was that the action by the Additional Claims Commissioner which resulted in the impugned order was taken long after the power to revise could be exercised. He contended that as the period for taking action in revision had to be prescribed by Rules, the addition of the proviso to sub‑rule (2‑A) in 1956 could not be considered to be valid. This argument cannot be accepted in view of the decision of their Lordships of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in Sahibrai v. The Custodian of Evacuee Property. Karachi (P L D 1957 S C (Pak.) 63) wherein it was held the term "prescribed period" mentioned in section 36 of the Pakistan (Administration of Evacuee Property) Ordinance, 1949, could be the period ending with the termination of Ordinance itself. In the face of this authority, it cannot be validly urged that rile 6 of the Rules was ultra vires because it authorised the Claims Commissioner to exercise powers of revision at any time that he chose to do so. While dealing with this part of‑the case, the learned counsel for the petitioners raised the point that sub‑rule (2) of rule 6 of the Rules and the proviso to that sub‑rule were irreconcilable with each other because while sub‑rule (2‑A) said that the powers to revise an order passed by an inferior authority could be exercised within ninety days, the proviso said that the Claims Commissioner could sun motu call for the records of any case at any time that he chose to do so. There is no doubt that there exists a con?tradiction between sub‑rule (2‑A) of rule 6 of the Rules and the proviso to that sub‑rule, but it appears that the officer who drafted the rule and the amendments made therein was under the impression‑which impression was clearly wrong‑that the Act had laid down that the Claims Commissioner could be g moved by a petition to exercise powers of revision and could exercise those powers even suo mote. This mistake was evidently due to the fact that in almost all enactments by virtue of which powers of revision are conferred, it is enacted that those powers may be exercised either on a petition put in by an aggrieved party for the exercise of those powers or suo motu by the officer who is competent to exercise them. But be that as it may, the fact remains that the proviso to sub‑rule (2‑A) of rule 6 of the Rules did not fix any period within which the Claims Commissioner could act suo motu in exercising the powers of revision conferred on him by subsection (3) of section 7 of the Act, at any time that he chose to do so. It should not be forgotten that the proviso was added after the sub‑rule and the proviso may be deemed to have impliedly repealed the sub‑rule itself in so far as the sub‑rule did not conform to the proviso. The learned counsel for the petitioners also urged that rule 6 of the Rules could not be availed of by an Additional Claims Commissioner because the sub‑rule only mentioned the Claims Commissioner and did not mention the Additional Claims Commissioner. I cannot accept this argument because the .delegation by the Claims Commissioner to the Additional Commissioners for the exercise of powers of revision was no doubt valid and as the Claims Commissioner could exercise the powers of revision at any time, I do not s‑.e why the Additional Claims Commissioner to whom the powers of revision have been validly delegated by the Claims Commissioner should not be competent to do exactly what the Claims Commissioner could do. It is .undeniable . that if the Claims Commission,‑r had himself sent for the record and entrusted the disposal of the case to the Additional Claims Commissioner, the exercise of powers by the Additional Claims Commissioner would not have been open to any objection on the ground that the power was exercised beyond the period prescribed by the Rules, and I do not see why the position should alter in any manner by reason of the fact that by virtue of the powers of revision delegated to an. Additional Claims Commis?sioner by the Claims Commissioner, the former officer suo motu called for the records of a case decided by a Claims Officer or a Deputy Claims Commissioner and passed thereon an order which he considered proper.

6. The main contentions of the learned counsel for the petitioners have been disposed of, but I will also notice another contention of his. He urged that the Additional Claims Commissioner was in error when he said in the last two lines of his impugned order that as the value of each house and the cattle‑shed left in a village by each of the petitioners was less than Rs. 10,000, his claim could not be registered under the Act. I do not consider it necessary to give a finding on this contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners because it is obvious that none of the three petitioners left in India property the aggregate value of which may have been fixed at Rs. 10,000 by the Additional Claims Commissioner.

7. In view of what I have said above, I find that the petition is without force. Consequently, I would dismiss the petition but would leave the parties to bear their own costs. M. B. AHMAD, J.‑I agree. A. H.??? Petition dismissed.