1969 PLP 315 (SCMR)

Ghulam Muhammad son of Sikandar Ali then filed an appeal against the said order. This appeal was accepted only to this extent that the non‑claimant transferees were ordered to pay up the arrears of rent in cash and the evaluation price within three months of the date on which the appendices were issued to them. In case of default the entire property was to stand transferred to the claimant Ghulam Muhammad son of Sikandar Ali. The latter again went up in revision from this order and the Settlement Commissioner, on the 13th November 1961, held that as the non‑claimant applicants had not paid the rent at the time when they had filed their respective forms, they were not eligible for the transfer of the property. The transfers in their favour were, accordingly, set aside and their respective portions were directed to be included in the evacuee pool for disposal by auction. Ghulam Muhammad son of Sikandar Ali filed a second revision but this too was dismissed on the 14th July 1962, as the records had not been called for before the target date. During the pendency of the revision before the Settlement Commissioner the said Ghulam Muhammad did not obtain any stay order with the result that the portion directed to be auctioned was sold by auction on the 22nd December 1961. This auction was confirmed on the 24th January 1962 and the P. T. O. was issued to the auction‑purchaser, the respondent No. 3 herein, on the 29th October 1962. It was only after this that the non‑claimant displaced persons invoked the writ jurisdiction of the High Court on the 21st February 1963, without impleading the auction‑purchaser. The permanent transfer deed was also thereafter, issued on the 1st April 1963, to the said respondent No.

3. Even so, no step was taken to implead the auction‑purchaser in the writ proceedings until the 1st of July 1965. This application was at first dismissed for non‑prosecution on the 4th April 1966, but it was sub sequently restored and the respondent No. 3 was allowed to be impleaded as a party on the 22nd September 1966, but subject to all just exceptions. The writ petition itself was dismissed for non‑prosecution on the 4th October 1966, but on a Letters Patent Appeal it was ordered to be restored. The only point argued before the learned Single Judge in Chambers after the restoration was that the non‑claimant petitioners had been wrongly disqualified but it was held on the basis of a Notification of the Central Government, dated the 13th October 1959, that before a non‑claimant non‑allottee could claim to be in possession of an evacuee property, he must show that he had paid the arrears of rent. Hence they were rightly held to be disqualified. Having dealt with this point the learned Judge went on to point out that the writ petition was liable to fail also on the ground of laches, since the petitioners had knowingly stood by and allowed the auction to be confirmed and a Permanent Transfer Deed to be issued in favour of the auction purchaser who was not even impleaded as a party to the writ proceedings. The application for impleading him was itself hopelessly belated. This decision has been upheld on appeal by a Letters Patent Bench also on the same ground. The petitioners now seek special leave to appeal to this Court but we. see no ground for inter ference in this matter. It is more than clear upon the facts recited above that the petitioners, knowing that the property had bee‑ put up to auction, took no steps either to have the auction stayed or to have the property taken out of the auction list pending the decision of the revision before the Settlement Commissioner. They did not even implead the auction purchaser as a party in the writ petition for a period of two years even after the issuance of the P. T. D. In the circumstances they could not be allowed to deprive the auction‑purchaser of the vested right he had acquired in the property in dispute as a result of the issuance of the P. T. D. This is, by itself, sufficient to indicate that the writ petition in the High Court was liable to fail in any event on the ground of laches. The petition is, accordingly, dismissed. Leave refused.