Pir SHAH ABDUL HAQ (deceased) vs MUHAMMAD IRFAN — 2026 SCMR 1019 SUPREME-COURT

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Pir SHAH ABDUL HAQ (deceased) VS MUHAMMAD IRFAN. Ss. 39, 42 & 54---Limitation Act (IX of 1908), First Sched., Art.91---Civil Procedure Code (V of 1908), S.115---Oral mutation, challenge to---Suit filed after twenty-two years---Fraud and misrepresentation, allegation of---Validity of belated claim and scope of revisional interference by High Court---The dispute concerned land purchased through an oral sale in 1980---After about twenty-two years the plaintiff challenged the mutation in 2002 alleging fraud and misrepresentation---The Trial Court and Appellate Court dismissed the suit as time-barred and unproved but the High Court reversed the findings while exercising revisional jurisdiction---Pivotal issue requiring determination was “whether the challenge to the mutation after an unexplained delay of over two decades on allegations of fraud was maintainable and whether the High Court could interfere with concurrent findings in revisional jurisdiction?”---Held: The impugned mutation was sanctioned on 15.03.1980, whereas the respondent instituted the suit on 16.05.2002, after an unexplained lapse of more than twenty-two years---During this prolonged period, the respondent remained completely silent and took no steps whatsoever to question the validity of the mutation or the underlying transaction---No convincing or legally acceptable explanation had been furnished to justify such inordinate delay---Apart from making bald allegations, the respondent failed to produce any convincing evidence to establish fraud in the sanctioning of the mutation---High Court, while exercising revisional jurisdiction, reassessed the evidence and substituted its own conclusions in place of the concurrent findings recorded by the courts below without identifying any misreading or non-reading of evidence, nor pointing out any material illegality or perversity in the conclusions drawn by the courts below---Such an approach was inconsistent with the well-settled limits of revisional jurisdiction---The impugned judgment, therefore, could not be sustained as it amounted to an impermissible interference with concurrent findings of fact recorded by two competent courts after due appreciation of the evidence on record---The suit instituted after an unexplained lapse of more than twenty-two years was clearly barred by limitation; the allegations of fraud and misrepresentation remained unsubstantiated and were rightly disbelieved by the subordinate Courts; the mutation, having remained incorporated in the revenue record for decades, carried a presumption of correctness which the respondent failed to rebut through credible evidence; moreover, during this long interregnum third-party rights had also come into existence---Impugned judgment and decree of the High Court was set aside, whereas concurrent judgments and decrees of courts below were restored---Appeals were allowed, in circumstances.

Pir SHAH ABDUL HAQ (deceased) vs MUHAMMAD IRFAN — 2026 SCMR 1019 SUPREME-COURT

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