2003 PLP 1845 (SCMR)

KHALIL-UR-REHMAN RAMDAY, J.

One Ghulam Rabbani was allotted two lots of 100 Kanals each in Chak No. 139/W.B. of Tehsil Mailsi under the Islamabad Oustees Scheme. On 24-4-1968 he entered into two separate agreements for the sale of the said two lots i.e. one agreement with one Muhammad Ramzan and the other agreement with one Sardar Muhammad. These sale agreements were got registered and as per the said agreements, the said Ghulam Rabbani had received the total sale price of Rs.20,000 for each lot from the said buyers and had handed over possession of the same to them. These agreements further envisaged that the seller shall execute the requisite sale-deeds and have them registered after the proprietary rights of the land in question were conferred on him. As per the record, the said Ghulam Rabbani secured the said proprietary rights on 21-5-1981 and on the same day sold one of the said two lots to Abdul Jabbar and Khuda Bakhsh and the other lot to Abdul Sattar, Abdul Ghaffar and Abdul Karim. This led the above mentioned Muhammad Ramzan and Sardar Muhammad, with whom Ghulam Rabbani had entered into sale agreements with respect to the said land, to the filing of two separate suits which suits were decreed by the learned trial Judge on 30-11-1985. The above mentioned actual buyers filed appeals which were allowed by a learned Additional District Judge through judgments and decrees dated 29-5-1986 essentially on the ground that the sale agreements in question were violative of the provisions of section 19 of the Colonization of Government Lands (Punjab) Act of 1912. Muhammad Ramzan and Sardar Muhammad approached the Lahore High Court with Civil Revisions Nos.619 and 621 of 1986 calling in question the above-noticed Appellate Judgments which revision petitions were allowed through a single judgment of the Lahore High Court dated 30-6-1999 as result of which the impugned judgments and decrees passed by the learned Additional District Judge were- set aside and the ones passed by the learned trial Judge were restored.

2. Khuda Bakhsh vendee above mentioned and Abdul Jabbar vendee, through his heirs, have challenged the said judgment of the Lahore High Court through Civil Petition No. 1071-L of 1999 while the vendees of the other lot namely Abdul Sattar, Abdul Ghaffar and Abdul Karim have filed Civil Petition No. 1072-L of 1999 for the said purpose. Both these petitions are being disposed of through this single order.

3. Having heard the learned counsel for the petitioners in both these petitions and Mr. Abdul Qayyum Anjum, Advocate Supreme Court for one of the respondents, we are inclined to allow these petitions and grant leave, inter alia, to consider the following question:-- "Whether the sale agreements in question dated 20-4-1968 were hit by the provisions of section 19 of the Colonization of Government Lands (Punjab) Act, 1912 and as to what, if any, was the effect of the provisions of section 27-A of the Specific A Relief Act on the facts and circumstances of the present case."

4. These petitions are thus allowed and leave granted to consider the above question.

5. The interim relief already allowed to the petitioners shall continue in the meantime. M.H./A-323/S Leave granted.