P L D 1962 (W P) Lahore 433 (PLP)

SHABIR AHMAD, J.‑By this petition presented under Art 2 (4) of the Laws (Continuance in Force) Order, 1958, in which originally there were two respondents, namely, the Claims Com missioner, Pakistan, respondent No. 1, and the Chief Settlement Commissioner, Lahore, respondent No. 2, Mr. M. A. Hafeez of 142‑G, Model Town, Lahore, seeks relief which can be clearly understood only if that paragraph of the writ petition, in which the relief is sought, is fully comprehended. It is for this reason that paragraph 15 of the petition is reproduced below: ‑ "Therefore it is humbly prayed that a writ of certiorari/ prohibition or any other writ, direction or order, appropriate in the circumstances of this case, be issued calling for the record of Claim No. 342995 and the order of the respondent No. 1, dated E‑4‑60, be quashed the same being illegal, arbitrary, capri cious, against natural justice, ultra vires, void and inoperative and the respondent No. 2 be directed not to implement the order in dispute of the respondent No. 1, and the costs of this writ petition be allowed against the respondents."

2. Some of the material facts maybe mentioned before the questions of law that arise are taken up. The petitioner is a refugee from Nagpur, which is now a part of India, and came to Pakistan in 1951. His case is that when coming to Pakistan he abandoned a cinema, known as "Jai Hind Cinema" or "New Cinema"; which was situated on the Circular Road, Stranjipura, Station Road, Atwari, Nagpur, C. P., and a building site. It was asserted in the writ petition that this cinema building had been leased by the petitioner for a period of five years beginning from the 15th of November 1948, along with furniture, chairs, lights and other apparatus except the machinery for running the cinema. According to the writ petition, the petitioner had claimed Rs. 25 lacs under the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Act (111 of 1956) and the Deputy Claims Commissioner, by his order, dated 27th July 1957, fixed the title of the petitioner at Rs. 7,77,600 under Schedule 11I of the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Rules of 1955, and also allowed the petitioner a sum of Rs. 4,14,720 as future rent under Schedule VI of Regis tration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Rules, but deducted therefrom a sum of Rs. 87,400 as principal and interest because of the mortgage effected by the petitioner on the property. The petition goes on to say that Mr. Khurshid Zaman, the then Claims Commissioner, Pakistan, who scrutinized the claim of the petitioner by his order, dated the 8th of April 1960, valued the cinema at Rs. 4,00,397, and held that the property fell within Schedule I of the Rules mentioned above and allowed Rs. 73,399 as its future rent. There were originally two respondents to the writ petition, one being the Claims Commissioner and the other being the Chief Settlement Commissioner. The Claims Commissioner was made a party because the order passed by him was impugned while the Chief Settlement Commissioner appears to have been made a party because he called upon the petitioner to appear before him and prove that he was entitled to be compensated for the property which he had left in India. Subsequently on an application made by him (C. M. 1600 of 1961) Sayyed Gulzar Husain Shah, who said that he would be adversely affected if the writ petition were to be accepted, was impleaded as a respondent.

3. The main attack on the order of the Claims Commissioner was that he had wrongly held that the building which the petitioner left in India was not an industrial concern and in this connection reference was made to clause (2) of section 2 of the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Act (III of 1956). Another attack on the order of the Claims Commissioner was that the case had been called by Mr. Khurshid Zaman, the then Claims Commis sioner to his own file because a transfer application had been presented to him saying that Mr. Saeed‑uz‑Zaman, a brother of Mr. Khurshid Zaman, was taking interest in a person who did not want the petitioner to have a verified claim for an industrial concern and this transfer of the case was improper. The relief sought was that the Chief Settlement Commissioner should be directed not to act on the finding of the Claims Commissioner to the effect that the property, which the petitioner claimed to have left in India, was not an industrial concern.

4. Before taking up the other questions, I will deal with the attack on the order of Mr. Khurshid Zaman which was based on the assertion that Mr. Saeed‑uz‑Zaman, his brother, was supporting Sayyed Gulzar Husain Shah who was interested in seeing that the claim of the petitioner should not be verified for an industrial concern. The facts that emerge from the material on the record are that one Gulzar Husain Shah, who was interested in a cinema at Multan, in which the petitioner was also interested, made an application to Mr. Khurshid Zaman that the claim case of the petitioner, Mr. M. A. Hafeez, which was before Mr. Ata Ullah Qureshi, Additional Claims Commissioner, on appeal should be transferred to the Claims Commissioner himself because Mr. Ata Ullah Qureshi, Additional Claims Commissioner, was incompetent to hear the appeal. It was on this application that Mr. Khurshid Zaman, in exercise of the powers of the Claims Commissioner, had sent for the record. It was open to any person, who did not want the case regarding the claim of Mr. M. A. Hafeez to be heard by Mr. Khurshid Zaman, to apply to the Central Government for an order that the case be transferred to someone else, but no such application was made, and, if one was made, it is obvious that it met with no success. There is nothing on the record, beyond an oblique hint in the petition that Mr. Saeed‑uz‑Zaman was interested in a person who did not want the claim of the petitioner to be verified for an industrial concern. The material for the attack on the integrity of such a high officer as the Claims Commissioner is so meagre that it is surprising that such an attack was made and I have no hesitation in holding that the attack was entirely unjustified.

5. It was contended by Sh. Ghias Muhammad, learned counsel for the petitioner, that the order whereby Mr. Khurshid Zaman transferred the case to his own file was illegal because no power existed in the Chief Claims Commissioner to trans fer any case from one Claims Authority to another. I do not consider it necessary to enter into the discussion of the question whether the power of transfer vested in the Claims Commissioner because it appears to me that the Claims Commissioner could send for the record and pass the order he passed. This power is clearly given to the Claims Commissioner by subsection (3) of section 7 of the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Act (III of 1956), which subsection reads as follows: ‑ " (3) A Claims Commissioner may suo motu call, within the prescribed period, for the record of any case which has been decided by a Claims Officer, a Deputy Claims Commissioner or an Additional Claims Commissioner under his jurisdiction for the purpose of satisfying himself as to the correctness, legality or propriety of any order passed therein and may pass such order in relation thereto as he thinks fit " 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." It cannot be seriously urged that what Mr. Khurshid Zaman did cannot fall within subsection (3) to section 7 of Act III of 1956, and the assertion of Sh. Ghias Muhammad to the effect that because the order of transfer was illegal the order passed after the transfer must be held to be without any binding force, cannot but be rejected.

6. I will now take up the question whether or not there is any ground to issue a writ with regard to the finding of the Claims Commissioner that the property which the petitioner left in Nagpur was not an industrial concern. Verification of Claims under the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Act, 1956, which replaced the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Ordinance, 1955, was to be made according to the rules made under the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Ordinance, 1955. These rules appeared as Notification No. 2 (2)/55‑P.S., dated the 1st April 1955, and continued in force when the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Act, 1956, came into force. According to these rules, claims with regard to immovable property left In India were to be verified under the Schedules appended to the Rules. Schedule VI of the Rules dealt with income of the property for which a claim had been submitted, while the other five Schedules dealt with the property itself. Schedule I was applic able where the property was a building, including sites in urban areas other than industrial undertakings. Schedule II dealt with buildings in other than urban areas, the estimated cost of construc ting which at the time of abandonment was not less than Rs. 10,000 in each case. Schedule III dealt with industrial undertakings, including buildings and land comprised therein. Schedule IV dealt with agricultural land and gardens in urban areas, while Schedule V dealt with agricultural property other than that situated in the Punjab (India), Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, the Patiala and East Punjab States Union and the States of Bharatpur, Alwar and Bikaner. No definition of the term "indus trial concern" was given in the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Ordinance, 1955, or Act 11I of 1956. Whether or not al building was an industrial concern is clearly a question of fact. Mr. Khurshid Zaman held the cinema hall left by the petitioner not to be an industrial concern because he found that the cinema hall, which the petitioner claimed to have left, was nothing more than four walls and a roof, without any electric lights, chairs, furniture or machine. I have said already that the question whether or not the property left by the petitioner fell within Schedule III appended to the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Ordinance (II of 1955) is a question of fact, and would add that while dealing with questions of fact, this Court would not, in the exercise or writ jurisdiction, exercise more powers than it would if the finding of fact had been given by a District Judge, that is that its correctness would be doubted only if it is based on no evidence at all or on a misreading of evidence, or if some relevant evidence has not been taken into consideration, or some irrelevant evidence has been taken into consideration. None of these things was asserted by the learned counsel for the petitioner to exist in the present case, and I have no hesitation in holding that the attack on the finding of fact given by Mr. Khurshid Zaman to the effect that the property left by the petitioner in India was not an industrial concern was entirely misconceived.

7. For the reasons given above I would dismiss the petition but would add that the order passed by the Claims Commissioner does not preclude the Settlement Authorities from considering the question whether the petitioner was entitled to any specific kind of property on the basis of his claim for property left In India. The petitioner will pay the costs of the petition to the respondents. ABDUR RAHIM KHARAL, J.‑I agree. A. H. Petition dismissed.