Law: Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958

Section: 30

(On appeal from the order of the High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore, dated the 26th January 1970, in Letters Patent Appeal No. 406 of 1959).   Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act (XXVIII of 1958), S. 30(5) read with Displaced Persons Laws Amendment Ordinance (XIII of 1964), Sched., Para. 13-Disputed property held by Settlement authorities as unregistered factory-Mere construction of kacha hutments in such premises would not change character of property as determined by Settlement authorities Persons in possession of such hutments entitled neither to their transfer nor to protection from ejectment. Date of hearing: 22nd April 1970.   JUDGMENT M. R. KHAN, J.-The dispute in this case relates to the premises of Desraj Dinanath Rice Mills situated in Tehsil Bazar, Sialkot. The petitioners who are 25 in number and who are refugees from the State of Jammu and Kashmir claim that they have been occupying different portions of the said premises by erecting kacha hutments thereon. The said property was, however, transferred to S. Mukhtar Hussain (respondent No. 4 herein) as an unregistered factory by the Additional Settlement Commissioner by his order, dated the 21st March 1960. The petitioners filed a time-barred appeal against the transfer of the property in favour of the respondent No. 4, although they themselves had not filed any forms under Scheme No. IV, applicable to displaced persons from the State of Jammu and Kashmir. This Appeal was dismissed on the 16th April 1965 on the ground that it was hopelessly barred by time and that the petitioners themselves had not filed any forms for transfer. The petitioners then went up in revision. The revisional authority held that the premises was an unregistered factory and the petitioners who have been living in the hutments raised in the compound of the factory have no locus standi in the matter. Accordingly, the revisional application was dismissed on the 10th December 1965. Thereafter, the petitioners kept quiet for about four years, but it was only on the 7th November 1969 that they made a writ petition in the High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore, challenging the various orders of the…