Muhammad Farooq Malik vs Memeber Punjab Defemation Tribunal etc.

Stereo. H C J D A 38.

JUDGMENT SHEET

IN THE LAHORE HIGH COURT

RAWALPINDI BENCH RAWALPINDI

JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT

F.A.O. No.16 of 2026 Muhammad Farooq Malik Versus Member, Punjab Defamation Tribunal etc.

JUDGMENT

Date of Hearing 29.09.2026 Appellant By: Appellant in person.

Respondents No.2 to Syed Jarar Haider, Advocate 4 By:

Anwaar Hussain J: This appeal under Section 26 of the Punjab Defamation Act, 2024 (“Act”) calls into question order dated 13.01.2026, whereby the Member, Defamation Tribunal, Rawalpindi (“Tribunal”), dismissed the claim instituted by the appellant as being barred by limitation.

2.Briefly stated facts of the case are that the appellant claims to have acquired knowledge of the alleged defamation in April, 2025. At that time, although the Act had already come into force, the Tribunals contemplated under Section 8 thereof had not been constituted. The appellant, therefore, instituted a suit for recovery of damages before the Court of ordinary civil jurisdiction on 28.07.2025. Subsequently, the Government of Punjab, through notification dated 22.09.2025, constituted the Tribunals under Section 8(1) of the Act and specified their respective territorial jurisdictions. The plaint was thereafter returned on 06.11.2025 for presentation before the competent forum. Upon obtaining its certified copy, the appellant presented the claim before the Tribunal on 13.11.2025. Respondents No.2 to 4 (“respondents”) appeared and raised an objection that claim is time barred, contending that the claim had been presented before the Tribunal after expiry of the prescribed period. The objection

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prevailed and, through the impugned order, the claim was dismissed as barred by time.

3.The appellant, appearing in person, submits that when the cause of action accrued and he sought enforcement of his right, the Tribunal had not been constituted and there existed no statutory forum before which the claim contemplated by the Act could be instituted. He, therefore, approached the Civil Court on 28.07.2025 instead of allowing the prescribed period to lapse while awaiting constitution of the Tribunal. It is maintained that after constitution of the Tribunal and return of the plaint on 06.11.2025, he acted without delay, obtained a certified copy and presented the claim before the Tribunal on 13.11.2025.

4.Conversely, learned counsel for the respondents submits that the proceedings having initially been instituted before the Civil Court ought to have continued before that Court in terms of Section 10(5) of the Act, which saves proceedings pending under the repealed Defamation Ordinance, 2002 (“Ordinance”).

5.Arguments heard. Record perused.

6.This appeal presents a question of constitutional and legal significance: can a statutory right be defeated by limitation when the law excludes the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, prescribes a special forum for enforcement of that right alongwith limitation period but the Government itself fails, during the relevant period, to constitute that forum and define its territorial jurisdiction? Put differently, can a litigant who asserted his right before the Civil Court during the prescribed limitation period be non-suited merely because the specially designated forum, which did not then legally exist, was constituted subsequently?

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7.The answer requires analysis, first, of the statutory architecture. Section 8(1) of the Act provides that the Government may, by notification in the official Gazette, establish such number of Tribunals as it considers necessary and, where more than one Tribunal is established, specify in the notification the territorial limits within which each shall exercise jurisdiction. The existence of the special forum and the territorial reach of its jurisdiction, therefore, depend upon performance of the statutory act of notification by the Government. Section 10 regulates the jurisdiction of a Tribunal and, subject to the exceptions contained therein, excludes other courts and forums from matters assigned to it. Section 11(2), meanwhile, permits a claimant to institute a claim within sixty days of the defamation or its coming to his notice or knowledge. Section 28 repeals the Ordinance, subject to the savings contained in the Act.

8.The distinction arising from this scheme is important. This is not a case where an existing Tribunal was merely non-functional, inaccessible or administratively unavailable. Until issuance of the notification under Section 8(1), there was no legally constituted Tribunal having territorial jurisdiction before which the appellant could present a claim under the Act. The law had created the right, prescribed the remedy and identified the nature of the forum, but the Executive had yet to perform the statutory act necessary to bring that forum into legal existence.

9.The admitted chronology brings the resulting anomaly into sharp focus. The appellant acquired knowledge of the alleged defamation in April, 2025 and approached the Civil Court on 28.07.2025. The Tribunal was constituted on 22.09.2025. Upon its constitution, the plaint was returned on 06.11.2025 and, after obtaining its certified copy, the appellant presented the claim before the Tribunal on 13.11.2025. He, therefore, did not remain inactive or

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allow his asserted right to lie dormant. The question is not one of condoning the indolence of a litigant; it is whether a period during which the forum prescribed by law did not legally exist can itself be employed to extinguish the remedy of a litigant who had meanwhile asserted that right before an available judicial forum.

10.The question engages the constitutional guarantee of access to justice. Article 4 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973 secures the right of every person to be dealt with in accordance with law; Article 9, as judicially interpreted, encompasses access to justice; and Article 10-A guarantees fair trial and due process in the determination of civil rights and obligations. The jurisprudence developed in cases reported as Government of Balochistan through Additional Chief Secretary v. Azizullah Memon and 16 others (PLD 1993 SC 341); Government of Sindh through Chief Secretary to Government of Sindh, Karachi and others v. Sharaf Faridi and others (PLD 1994 SC 105); and Al-Jehad Trust through Raeesul Mujahideen Habib-ul-Wahabb-ul-Khairi and others v. Federation of Pakistan and others (PLD 1996 SC 324) recognizes access to justice through a competent and independent judicial forum as a fundamental constitutional guarantee. The guarantee is not satisfied by the abstract recognition of a right while the forum exclusively designated for its enforcement has yet to be brought into existence.

11.The ancient maxim ubi jus ibi remedium—where there is a right, there is a remedy—captures the relationship between a legal right and the means of its vindication. The maxim does not create jurisdiction where the statute withholds it, nor does it authorize a Court to disregard an express period of limitation. Its relevance here is narrower but fundamental: where the law recognizes a right, excludes the ordinary route for its enforcement and substitutes a special forum,

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failure of the Government to constitute that substitute cannot, during the resulting interregnum, convert the right into one incapable of judicial enforcement. A statutory right and the machinery provided for its enforcement cannot be treated as disconnected promises; meaningful access to the latter gives practical content to the former.

12.Similarly, the principle envisaged under latin maxim lex non cogit ad impossibilia––the law does not compel the impossible, supplies the answer from another angle. Before 22.09.2025, the appellant could not have instituted his claim before a forum which had not been constituted. This was not an impossibility personal to the appellant or one produced by his own conduct. It arose because the statutory act which the Government alone was competent to perform had not yet been performed. Law cannot demand compliance with a procedural requirement while withholding the institutional means necessary for its performance.

13.Adverting to the question of limitation, we are cognizant of the legal position that limitation serves important purposes of certainty, repose and finality, and constitutional guarantees cannot be employed to rewrite an otherwise clear statutory period. The present controversy arises at an anterior stage: can time be counted against a litigant for not approaching a particular statutory forum during a period when that forum did not legally exist? There is a material distinction between delay attributable to a litigant and inability produced by the statutory framework itself. The former attracts the law of limitation; the latter requires the Court first to determine whether the law could at all have required performance of an impossible procedural act.

14.The appellant’s conduct assumes significance in this context. Far from remaining passive, he invoked the judicial process on 28.07.2025, when the Tribunal had yet to be constituted, and remained in pursuit of his remedy. Once the Tribunal came into

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existence and the Civil Court returned the plaint, he presented the claim before the Tribunal within days. The principle actus curiae neminem gravabit—an act of the Court shall prejudice no one— though not the source of jurisdiction and not directly applicable to the initial failure of the Government to constitute the Tribunal, reinforces the broader remedial principle that once the appellant had timely invoked the judicial process, a diligent litigant ought not to suffer merely because his proceeding had to pass through a procedural transition necessitated by the subsequent availability of the competent forum.

15.Similarly, the contention of learned counsel for the respondents founded upon Section 10(5) of the Act does not alter this conclusion. The provision reads as under:

“(5) All proceedings pending in any court or tribunal under the Defamation Ordinance, 2002 shall continue to be heard and disposed of by the same court having jurisdiction under the said Ordinance, and all other remedies under the said Ordinance shall be available in the same manner as were available before the coming into force of this Act.”

The saving is textually confined to the proceedings already pending under the Ordinance when the Act came into force. Its purpose is to preserve such pending proceedings notwithstanding repeal of the earlier enactment. It does not revive the Ordinance for institution of fresh proceedings after the Act had come into force. Section 28 expressly repealed the Ordinance subject to the savings contained in the Act. The appellant's proceeding, instituted on 28.07.2025, was thus not a proceeding pending under the Ordinance at the commencement of the Act and cannot be brought within Section 10(5) merely because, in the absence of a constituted Tribunal, he approached the ordinary Civil Court. The respondents’ construction would, in effect, require the appellant either to institute a fresh proceeding under a repealed enactment or to await constitution

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of the Tribunal while limitation continued to run. The statutory text warrants neither consequence.

16.The constitutional guarantee of access to justice read with the principles of ubi jus ibi remedium and lex non cogit ad impossibilia thus converge upon a narrow proposition without displacing the law of limitation: the State cannot create a right, prescribe an exclusive forum for its enforcement, fail to bring that forum into legal existence, and allow reliance upon institutional default to defeat the right of a litigant who had meanwhile approached the Courts of plenary jurisdiction within the prescribed period. The law does not reward indolence, but neither does it manufacture default out of diligence.

17.The Tribunal approached the matter as though the appellant’s claim had been asserted for the first time on 13.11.2025 before it. That premise overlooks both the institutional setting and the appellant’s conduct. His right had been asserted before the Civil Court on 28.07.2025; at that time the forum contemplated by Section 8 had not been constituted; and, once that forum became legally available and the plaint was returned, he approached it promptly. Treating the intervening period as fatal would make preservation of the statutory remedy depend not upon the diligence of the claimant but upon the timing of an executive notification over which he had no control.

18.For the foregoing reasons, we are unanimous in holding that statutory period of limitation cannot, in the peculiar circumstances of the present case, be applied so as to extinguish the remedy of a litigant who asserted his right within the prescribed period before an available judicial forum at a time when the exclusive statutory forum had not yet been constituted, and who, upon its constitution and return of the plaint, approached the said forum, without undue delay.

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19.Consequently, this appeal is allowed. The impugned order dated 13.01.2026 is set aside and the matter is remitted to the Tribunal for decision of the claim on merits, in accordance with law.

(MIRZA VIQAS RAUF) (ANWAAR HUSSAIN)

Judge Judge

Approved for reporting

Judge Judge

AB**