IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(APPELLATE JURISDICTION) 
 
 
PRESENT: 
MR. JUSTICE AMIR HANI MUSLIM 
MR. JUSTICE MUSHIR ALAM 
MR. JUSTICE MAQBOOL BAQAR 
MR. JUSTICE FAISAL ARAB 
MR. JUSTICE KHILJI ARIF HUSSAIN  
 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 04-K OF 2012 
(On appeal against the judgment dated 30.09.2011 
passed by the High Court of Sindh, Karachi in Cr. 
Revision Application No. 07/2011) 
 
Shaikh Muhammad Naseem 
… Appellant 
VERSUS 
 
Mst. Farida Gul 
… Respondent 
 
For the Appellant:  
Nemo 
 
For the Respondent: 
Mr. Abdullah A. Munshi, ASC 
 
 
 
 
Mr. K.A. Wahab, AOR 
 
For the State: 
 
Mr. Shahdat Awan, P.G. 
 
Date of Hearing:  
22.07.2016 
 
 
JUDGMENT 
 
 
 
 
FAISAL ARAB, J.- In the present appeal, the appellant, 
who claims to be a tenant of the respondent, filed Criminal 
Complaint No.130 of 2010 in the Court of Sessions, Karachi-East 
under the provisions of Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 alleging that 
on 08.01.2010 while he was away, the servants and some hired 
persons of the respondent entered his rented premises and forcibly 
took its possession. The said criminal complaint was dismissed as 
not maintainable by the Additional Sessions Judge vide order dated 
13.12.2010 for the reason that a Civil Revision Application No. 77 of 
2007 wherein the restoration of possession of the same rented 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 04-K OF 2012 
2
premises has been sought by the Appellant is pending adjudication 
in the High Court of Sindh. The appellant challenged the order of 
the Additional Sessions Judge before the High Court in Criminal 
Revision No.7 of 2011 which was dismissed. While doing so the High 
Court not only adopted the same reasoning as that of the Additional 
Sessions Judge but also placed reliance on the judgment delivered 
by a three member bench of this Court in the case of Bashir Ahmad 
Vs. Additional Sessions Judge (PLD 2010 SC 661) wherein the scope 
and applicability of the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 was 
restricted. It was held that only such offenders can be prosecuted 
who possess the credentials and antecedents of ‘land grabbers’ or 
‘Qabza Group’ and no one else. As in the impugned judgement, the 
High Court has placed reliance on Bashir Ahmad’s case supra, we 
deem it appropriate to refer to the judgment delivered by a five 
member bench of this Court recently decided on 18.07.2016 in Civil 
Petition No.41/2008 alongwith Civil Appeals No. 2054/2007 & 
1208/2015 (Gulshan Bibi and others Vs. Muhammad Sadiq and 
others), which resolved the conflict between two sets of judgments of 
three member benches of this Court, including Bashir Ahmad’s case 
supra. The first set comprised of the cases of Muhammad Akram Vs. 
Muhammad Yousaf (2009 SCMR 1066), Mumtaz Hussain Vs. Dr. 
Nasir Khan (2010 SCMR 1254) and Shahabuddin Vs. The State 
(PLD 2010 SC 725). These cases do not impose any restriction as to 
category of persons who could only be prosecuted under the 
provisions of Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005. The second set 
comprised of cases of Bashir Ahmad Vs. Additional Sessions Judge 
(PLD 2010 SC 661) and Habibullah Vs. Abdul Manan (2012 SCMR 
1533) wherein it was held that only those possessing the credentials 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 04-K OF 2012 
3
and antecedents of ‘land grabbers’ or ‘Qabza Group’ can be 
prosecuted thereby restricting the scope and applicability of the 
Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005. The five member bench of this 
Court in Gulshan Bibi’s case supra while examining both the sets of 
cases came to the conclusion that it was not the intention of the 
legislature that only a particular category of persons can be 
prosecuted under the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005. Thus the 
second set of cases was declared not to be a good law. For ease of 
convenience, the reasons that prevailed with the five members 
bench are briefly explained below:-  
 
2. 
 
The substantive provisions of Illegal Dispossession Act, 
2005, which describe the offence and the offender are contained in 
Section 3 of the Act. It reads as follows:- 
  
“3. 
Prevention of illegal possession of property, etc. (1) No 
one shall enter into or upon any property to dispossess, grab, control 
or occupy it without having any lawful authority to do so with the 
intention to dispossess, grab, control or occupy the property from 
owners or occupier of such property. 
 
 
(2) 
Whoever contravenes the provisions of the sub-section (1) 
shall, without prejudice to, any punishment to which he may be liable 
under any other law for the time being in force, be punishable with 
imprisonment which may extend to ten years and with fine and the 
victim of the offence shall also be compensated in accordance with 
the provision of section 544-A of the Code.”  
 
(Underlining is ours to lay emphasis) 
 
3. 
 
It is evident from the provisions of Section 3 of the 
Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 that it describes the offence 
exhaustively but does not describe the offenders in specific terms. 
On the contrary, it uses the general terms 'no one' and 'whoever' for 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 04-K OF 2012 
4
the offenders. The use of such general terms clearly indicates that 
the widest possible meaning was attributed to the offenders. The 
three member bench of this Court in Bashir Ahmed's case supra 
however has held that under the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 
only those can be prosecuted who possess the credentials and 
antecedents of ‘land grabbers’ or ‘Qabza Group’ and none else. In 
reaching such conclusion, Bashir Ahmed's case adopted the 
reasoning contained in the judgment of the Lahore High Court in 
the case of Zahoor Ahmed Vs. the State (PLD 2007 Lahore 231). The 
first reason that prevailed with the Lahore High Court in Zahoor 
Ahmed’s case was the use of the term ‘property grabbers’ in the 
preamble of the Act, which was made basis to restrict its scope and 
applicability. We may state that the term ‘property grabbers’ is not 
one of those terms that is popularly associated with any particular 
class of offenders such as the terms ‘Land grabbers’, ‘Qabza Mafia’ 
or ‘Qabza Group’. In fact none of the popular terms which are 
identified with a specific category of offenders have been used 
anywhere in the Act. As the term ‘property grabbers’ appearing in 
the preamble of the Act has been used in general sense, it cannot be 
identified with any particular category of offenders in order to 
restrict the scope and applicability of the Illegal Dispossession 
Act, 2005 to a particular category of offenders. Additionally, the 
substantive provision of Illegal Dispossession Act i.e. Section 3 
expressly uses general terms such as ‘no one’ and ‘whoever’ for the 
offender. This clearly indicates that the widest possible meaning is 
to be attributed to these terms. Thus the provisions of Section 3 
clearly demonstrate that whosoever commits the act of illegal 
dispossession, as described in the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 04-K OF 2012 
5
against a lawful owner or a lawful occupier, he can be prosecuted 
under its provisions without any restriction.  
  
 
4. 
 
To reach the conclusion which it did, the Lahore High 
Court judgment in Zahoor Ahmed’s case apart from using the term 
‘property grabbers’ that finds mention in the preamble had also 
placed reliance on the caption of the Working Paper that was 
prepared by the law ministry at the time of laying the Illegal 
Dispossession Bill before the parliament. The caption of the Working 
Paper states “The object of the proposed Bill is to provide deterrent 
punishment to the land grabbers and Qabza Group and to provide 
speedy justice and effective and adequate relief to the victims 
dispossessed of immovable property by unlawful means….” It can be 
seen that the terms ‘land grabbers’ and ‘Qabza Group’ that were 
there in the caption never found their way in any provision of the 
Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005. The second part of the caption of 
the Working Paper narrates “….. to provide speedy justice and 
effective and adequate relief to the victims dispossessed of 
immovable property by unlawful means….”. In our view the object 
contained in this second part of the caption of the Working Paper 
was in fact achieved as is evident from the contents of the 
substantive provisions of the Act, which are unambiguous and 
unequivocal and while interpreting them do not lead to any 
absurdity. In Gulshan Bibi’s case supra the five member bench of 
this Court had referred to a judgment from English jurisdiction in 
the case of Pepper Vs. Hart [1992] 3 WLR 1032 wherein it was held 
that the exclusionary rule whereby reference to Parliamentary 
materials was prohibited should be relaxed so that the courts may 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 04-K OF 2012 
6
reach the true meaning of the enactment. However, such a 
conclusion was qualified i.e. it was held that such a course is to be 
adopted only in situations where the legislation is ambiguous or 
obscure or while interpreting the provision it leads to an absurdity. 
While interpreting the scope of the provisions of the Illegal 
Dispossession Act, 2005 the larger bench of this Court in Gulshan 
Bibi’s case supra did not find any ambiguity, obscurity or absurdity 
in the substantive provisions of the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 
that would have warranted reference to the relevant Parliamentary 
material. In paragraphs 6 to 8 of Gulshan Bibi’s case the five 
member bench of this Court held as follows:- 
 
“5. 
 
A bare reading of sub-sections (1) of Section 3 the 
Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 shows that terms like dispossess, 
grab, control or occupy have been used which clearly mean that 
illegal dispossession in all forms have been made an offence and by 
the use of the terms ‘no one’ and ‘whoever’ in sub-sections (1) and (2) 
of Section 3, anyone and everyone who commits such an offence was 
made liable for punishment. The very use of the terms like ‘no one’ 
and ‘whoever’ are clearly intended to convey the widest possible 
meaning for the offenders. Thus without any distinction any person 
who illegally dispossesses, grabs, controls or occupies property of a 
lawful owner or occupier shall be liable for prosecution under the 
provisions of the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005. The second set of 
cases has however restricted the scope and application of the Illegal 
Dispossession Act, 2005 to a particular class of offenders only i.e. 
those who possess the credentials or antecedents of being ‘land 
grabbers’ or Qabza Group by placing reliance on the term ‘property 
grabbers’ that appears in the preamble of the Illegal Dispossession 
Act, 2005. From the mere use of the term ‘property grabbers’ in the 
preamble one cannot reach the conclusion that the legislature 
intended that a complainant must first establish that the accused 
possesses the credentials or antecedents of being a professional land 
grabber or member of a Qabza Group in order to maintain his 
complaint under the said Act. The term ‘property grabber’ can be 
construed to refer to anyone who has committed the act of grabbing 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 04-K OF 2012 
7
someone’s property illegally. Limiting the scope and application of the 
provisions of the main enactment to a particular class of offenders 
and that too on the basis of a term used in the preamble would not 
only deflect the Court to go into issues which are not subject matter of 
the complaint that is before it but at the same time such an 
interpretation would violate the cardinal principle of the statutory 
construction that where the language of the substantive provision of 
an enactment is clear and not open to any doubt then the preamble 
cannot be used to curtail or enlarge its scope. Thus where the 
enactment is clear and unambiguous, the preamble cannot be used to 
undermine the clear meaning of the provisions of the Act or give it a 
different meaning. Only where the object or meaning of an enactment 
is not clear, the preamble may be resorted to in order to explain it. So 
the preamble is to be resorted only to explain and give meaning to 
any provision of the enactment where its language is open to doubt or 
is ambiguous or susceptible to more than one meaning. In the 
presence of the general terms like ‘anyone’ or ‘whoever’ that have 
been used to describe the offender, which are clear and wide in their 
application, the scope of the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 cannot 
be confined to any particular class of offenders.  
 
6. 
 
It would also be not out of place to mention here that 
reference to Legislative history is permissible only as an aid to 
construction of legislation which is ambiguous or obscure or the literal 
meaning of which leads to an absurdity i.e. from the text of a statute, 
the court is unable to decipher the real intent of the Legislature. 
Where the text is clear and there exists no ambiguity, resort to the 
legislative history may actually be counter-productive. This is 
because 
legislative 
history 
contains 
sporadic 
accounts 
and 
arguments made by the parliamentarians and the final outcome of 
debates and arguments made in the parliament could be much 
different. Therefore, the real intention of the parliament is to be first 
and foremost ascertained from the provisions of the enactment itself 
and frequent resort to the legislative history is not warranted. In this 
regard the case of Pepper Vs. Hart [1992] 3 WLR 1032, a judgment 
from English jurisdiction, can be referred with considerable 
advantage. 
 
7. 
 
From what has been discussed above it is evident that 
no provision of the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 imposes any 
precondition on the basis of which a particular class of offenders 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 04-K OF 2012 
8
could only be prosecuted. The Act aims at granting efficacious relief 
to lawful owners and occupiers in case they are dispossessed by 
anyone without lawful authority. Section 3(1) of the said Act by using 
the terms ‘anyone’ and ‘whoever’ for the offenders clearly warns all 
persons from committing the offence described therein and when 
found guilty by the court are to be punished without attaching any 
condition whatsoever as to the maintainability of the complaint. So all 
that the Court has to see is whether the accused nominated in the 
complaint has entered into or upon the property in dispute in order to 
dispossess, grab, control, or occupy it without any lawful authority. 
Nothing else is required to be established by the complainant as no 
precondition has been attached under any provision of the said Act 
which conveys the command of the legislature that only such accused 
would be prosecuted who holds the credentials and antecedents of 
‘land grabbers’ or ‘Qabza Group’. It does not appeal to reason that for 
commission of an offence reported it the complaint filed under the Illegal 
Dispossession Act, 2005 the Legislature would intent to punish only 
those who hold history of committing a particular kind of offence but 
would let go an accused who though has committed the offence reported 
in the complaint but does not hold the record of committing a particular 
kind of offence. In our view trial of a case is to be relatable to the 
property which is subject matter of the complainant, pure and simple. 
Any past history of the accused with regard to his act of dispossession 
having no nexus with the complaint cannot be taken into consideration 
in order to decide whether the accused stands qualified to be awarded 
a sentence under the Act or not. Once the offence reported in the 
complaint stands proved against the accused then he cannot escape 
punishment under the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005.  
 
8. 
 
In view of the above discussion we conclude that in any 
proceedings initiated under Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005, the 
issues which fall for decision would be whether the offence against a 
lawful owner or occupier, as described in the complaint, has taken 
place and whether it is the accused who has committed it without 
any lawful authority. Anyone found committing the offence described 
in Section 3 would be amenable to prosecution under the provisions 
of Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 and no past record of the accused 
needs to be gone into by the court.”  
 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 04-K OF 2012 
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5. 
 
In the impugned judgment it was also held that where 
civil litigation with regard to illegal dispossession from immoveable 
property is pending between the parties, the proceedings under the 
Illegal dispossession Act, 2005 cannot be maintained. This finding is 
also based on the decision of the Lahore High Court in Zahoor 
Ahmed's case (PLD 2007 Lahore 231, reasoning of which was 
adopted by three member bench of this Court in Bashir Ahmed's 
case (PLD 2010 SC 661). We are of the view that such a finding is 
also not sustainable in law. Any act which entails civil liability 
under civil law as well as criminal penalty under criminal law, such 
as the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005 then a person can be tried 
under both kinds of proceedings, which are independent of each 
other. Once the offence reported in the complaint stands proved 
against the accused within the confines of the provisions of the Illegal 
Dispossession Act, 2005 then he cannot escape punishment on the 
ground that some civil litigation on the same issue is pending 
adjudication between the parties. No one can be allowed to take law 
in his own hands and unlawfully dispossess an owner or lawful 
occupier of an immovable property and then seek to thwart the 
criminal proceedings initiated against him under the Illegal 
Dispossession Act, 2005 on the pretext that civil litigation on the 
issue is pending adjudication between the parties in a court of law. 
Therefore, irrespective of any civil litigation that may be pending in 
any Court, where an offence, as described in the Illegal 
Dispossession Act, 2005, has been committed, the proceedings 
under the said Act can be initiated as the same would be 
maintainable in law. 
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 04-K OF 2012 
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6. 
 
The above are the detailed reasons of our short order of 
even date whereby while relying on five Member Bench judgment of 
this Court dated 18.07.2016 rendered in the case of Gulshan Bibi 
Vs. Muhammad Sadiq in Civil Petition No. 41/2008 and Civil Appeal 
Nos. 2054/2007 & 1208/2015, this appeal was disposed of and the 
matter was remanded back to the learned Trial Court for its disposal 
on merits.  
 
JUDGE 
 
JUDGE 
 
 
 
JUDGE 
 
 
 
JUDGE 
 
 
 
JUDGE 
Karachi, the 
22nd of July, 2016 
Approved For Reporting 
Khurram