Mst. Jameela Begum (Deceased) Through Lrs etc. vs Sh. Fayyaz Ahmad (Deceased) Through Lrs etc.

FORM No. HCJD/C-121

ORDER SHEET

IN THE LAHORE HIGH COURT,

MULTAN BENCH, MULTAN.

JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT

Review Application No.07-C of 2026 Mst. Jameela Begum, etc. versus Sh. Fayyaz Ahmad, etc. Sr. No. of order/ Date of order/ Order with signature of Judge, and that of Proceedings Proceeding Parties’ counsel, where necessary 22.06.2026 M/s Muhammad Ali Siddiqui, Sammar Abbas, Miss Fatima Safeer and Miss Memona Ashiq, Advocates for the applicants.

Syed Muhammad Ali Gillani and Syed Tajammal Hussain Bokhari, Advocates for the respondents. Rana Ghulam Hussain, Assistant Attorney General for Pakistan, Sarwar Ahmad Ghani, Sh. Faisal Sikandar Iqbal, Muhammad Shahid Malik and Samina Nighat Chughtai, Advocates.

Mr. Musleh-ud-Din Khan and Malik Muhammad Bakhsh Khakhi Assistant Advocate Generals, Punjab.

The petitioners/applicants, through this review petition/application, have challenged interlocutory order dated 27.02.2026 passed by the learned Single Judge of this Court in FAO No.07/2026, directing the applicants to deposit 30% arrears of rent and 20% surety with the Deputy Registrar (Judl.) of this Court within a period of one month.

2.It is claimed that the said order was not justified as the petitioners are owners in possession of the suit property on account of Judgment and Decree dated 14.07.2011 passed by learned Civil Judge Multan and as the relationship of landlord and tenant did not exist between the parties, order for deposit of rent and surety bond could not have been passed as jurisdiction did not vest with the Court to pass any such order, unless relationship of landlord

and tenant was established to exist in the instant matter. It is claimed that it was for this reason that this Court on 27.01.2026 unconditionally passed order of status quo regarding the suit property but later on despite the fact that the respondents had requested for an adjournment to prepare the brief, directed the petitioners to deposit the aforementioned amount and surety, which is claimed not to be justified in the given circumstances of the case. The order dated 27.02.2026 is reproduced below for clarity:

“Learned counsel seeks time to file power of attorney on behalf of respondents and to prepare his brief.

2.Appellants’ side is directed to deposit 30% of the arrears of rent and 20% of the surety with the Deputy Registrar (Judl.) of this Court within a period of one month and the said amount shall be kept in a profitable scheme.

3.Adjourned to 25.03.2026.”

3.On the other hand, an objection has been raised by respondents that in view of the judgments reported as Muzaffar Ali v. Muhammad Shafi (PLD 1981 Supreme Court 94) and Chairman, WAPDA v. Habib Ahmad Hashmi (1986 MLD 978), this review application is not maintainable as the applicable law i.e. the Cantonments Rent Restriction Act, 1963 does not provide remedy of review against orders passed in rent matters, which is a substantive right and unless substantive right of review is provided by the statute, it cannot be exercised by the original authority/forum or the Appellate Court while hearing appeal against such orders for the reason that appeal by operation of law is deemed to be continuation of

the proceedings of the original Court/forum, where the entire case reopens for adjudication.

4.In the case of Muzaffar Ali (Supra), the question for determination before the Hon”ble Supreme Court of Pakistan was that whether an order passed by the High Court in second appeal arising out of a rent matter under the provisions of West Pakistan Rent Restriction Ordinance, 1959 “the Ordinance” was open to review. It has been held that the Ordinance neither expressly nor by reference bestowed any power of review and High Court had no jurisdiction to review its orders passed in second appeal under the Ordinance. Some extracts of the operative portion of the judgment which constitute reasoning for reaching the aforementioned conclusion are reproduced below for ready reference and clarity:- “Right of review is a substantive right and is always a creation of the relevant Statute on the subject. The assumption that a review in appeal is a continuation of the appeal, is not correct, with the result that the further corollary drawn therefrom in favour of existence of a right of review on that score will also consequently fall. Again the theory of continuation of trial or proceeding is not conclusive of the existence of a right to make a previous judgment open for scrutiny whether by a higher Court in the form of appeal or the same Court in the form of a review. For example, it will be appreciated that an appeal is regarded as a continuation of trial, but it is well settled that a jurisdiction or right of appeal does not exist merely on this theory but is to be created or granted by a Statute. If so granted and if so invoked or exercised, the proceedings in an appeal are considered as a continuation of the trial, but the basic fact remains that this jurisdiction is to be bestowed by a Statute and Statute alone. If this is not

done then the aforesaid theory by itself will not create any right or jurisdiction of appeal. Assuming without conceding, that a review is also a continuation of the previous proceeding even then before the proceedings are allowed to further continue, in the form of a review, a jurisdiction to do so in this case also must be similarly conferred by a Statute just as it is to be done in the case of grant of a right of appeal, If there is no statutory conferment of jurisdiction of review, like jurisdiction of appeals, the theory of continuation of proceeding will be of no avail.”

5.While relying on the above case law, a Division Bench of the Sindh High Court at Karachi in case of Habib Ahmad Hashmi (supra) held that right of review being substantive right and always creation of relevant statute, assumption that review in appeal was continuation of appeal was not correct as the Ordinance neither expressly nor by reference had bestowed any powers of review and High Court had no jurisdiction to review orders passed by it in second appeal.

6.When confronted with the principles laid down in the aforementioned judgments coupled with the fact that same was the position with the Cantonments Rent Restriction Act, 1963, the learned counsel for the petitioners states that as the impugned order had been passed without determining that whether there existed relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties, hence same was without jurisdiction, which was an error apparent on the face of record, therefore, this Court has jurisdiction to set the same aside while exercising power of review. It is further claimed that originally the review petition was entertained by the learned Single Judge who was the

author of the impugned order, which had been passed without providing opportunity of hearing to the parties as a request for adjournment had been made by the respondents, hence despite the fact that the matter has been placed before this Division Bench as the learned Single Judge who passed the impugned order is not available, this Court retains the jurisdiction to entertain the same.

7.Although the learned counsel for the applicants has defended the maintainability of instant review application on the ground that the order was without jurisdiction and has been passed without opportunity of hearing and the same according to him was an error apparent on the face of the record, which needed to be rectified but he could not convince us by relying upon any case law to show that the principles laid down in the afore-referred judgments are not applicable to the case in hand or how this court has the jurisdiction to entertain petition for review against the impugned order. It is pertinent to mention here that where jurisdiction is not vested in a forum, the same could not be conferred in the said forum at the wish of a party, even if consent is given by the other side. Reliance is placed on Faqir Muhammad v. Khursheed Bibi and others (2024 SCMR 107), wherein it is laid down that parties cannot, by mutual consent, take away jurisdiction vested in any Court of law, nor can they confer jurisdiction to any Court not vested in it by law. Consequently, it is observed that this review application is not maintainable at this juncture as jurisdiction is not vested by law on this court to entertain the same.

8.However, despite what has been observed above, as the claim of the petitioners is that prejudice has been caused to their rights by the act of court, which did not provide proper hearing to the parties before passing the said order, which is stated to be in conflict with previous orders of the said court and it appears that prima facie, the impugned order is an interlocutory discretionary order, whereby nothing has been finally decided and only a direction to deposit portion of rent and surety bond has been passed whereas the matter in controversy between the parties through the afore-referred First Appeal against Order (“FAO”) is still pending with the learned Single Judge, which court still retains jurisdiction to modify its previous interlocutory orders that had not attained finality, therefore, if the petitioners/applicants want to approach the learned Single Judge for redress of their grievance, they may do the needful through an appropriate application.

9.Disposed of.

(RASAAL HASAN SYED) (MUZAMIL AKHTAR SHABIR)

JUDGE JUDGE

*KMSubhani*

APPROVED FOR REPORTING.