Law:

Section:

(a) Pakistan (Administration of Evacuee Property) Act (XII of 1957)-----   ----S. 8 read with S. 5-Right of residence of evacuee non --proprietor in house built on land belonging to proprietary body of village-Not a "grant" within meaning of term as used in S. 8-- Right liable to be forfeited in accordance with entries in wajib -ul-arz or with custom on "voluntary" abandonment-Evacuee's migration deemed to be "voluntary"-S. 5 not effective in vesting such right in Custodian--Words and phrases-"Voluntarily" Permission to reside in such cases not a "right at all."   The right of residence given to non-Muslim non-proprietors in villages which now form part of Pakistan cannot be treated as evacuee property if the non-Muslim non-proprietors had left that property voluntarily ; and they must be deemed to have left voluntarily unless there be evidence that they were forced by the proprietors to leave.   Section 8 of the Pakistan (Administration of Evacuee Property) Act, 1957 was not intended to apply to those rights which could come to an end at any moment, or at a specified time.   According to the wajib-ul-arz of the villages concerned and the customary law, the rights of the evacuees terminated as soon as they left because the departure of the evacuees was voluntary for the purposes of the entries in the wajib-ul-arz as well as of the manuals of customary law, and so the provisions of section 8 of the Act cannot be called in aid by the Custodian to revive a right which had been extinguished earlier.   Section 5 of the Act does not mean that a person who became an evacuee shall be deemed to have left behind more rights than he would have had if he had not become an evacuee.   The rights of the non-Muslim non-proprietors were not "grants" for purposes of section 8.   The term "voluntarily" means, of one's own accord, and the fact that departure was under the force of circumstances cannot make it involuntary.   Policy underlying the laws relating to evacuee property, which were brought on the statute-book in and after 1947, cannot be invoked for…