IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(Appellate Jurisdiction) 
 
 
PRESENT  
MR. JUSTICE MAQBOOL BAQAR 
MR. JUSTICE MAZHAR ALAM KHAN MIANKHEL 
MR. JUSTICE QAZI MUHAMMAD AMIN AHMAD 
 
 
CIVIL APPEAL NO. 51 OF 2011 
 (Against the judgment dated 11.05.2010 of 
the Lahore High Court, Lahore passed in 
RFA No.592 of 2006) 
 
 
Muhammad Mansha 
  
… 
Appellant 
 
 
 
 
Vs. 
 
Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan 
and others 
  
… 
Respondents 
 
 
For the appellant 
: Ch.M.Amin Javed, ASC 
 
For respondent No.1 
: Mr.M.Almas, ASC. 
 
 
 
Date of Hearing 
 
19.2.2020 
 
ORDER 
MAQBOOL BAQAR, J.- A property bearing House 
No.861, Akbari Gate, Lahore, (the property), was being sought by the 
respondent-bank to be attached and sold before Banking Court IV, 
Lahore, in the execution proceedings initiated by the respondent 
bank for enforcement of a judgment and a decree obtained by it for 
recovery of Rs.32,04,620/- against respondent No.2 and 3. The move 
was resisted by the appellant through an application. However the 
appellant’s application was dismissed and attachment as sought was 
ordered by the Banking Court. The appeal filed by the appellant 
against the said order has been dismissed by a learned Division 
Bench of the Lahore High Court through judgment now impugned 
before us. 
2. 
 
The judgement and decree sought to be enforced by the 
respondent bank, was passed by a Banking Court, under Banking 
CA 51/2011 
2
Companies (Recovery of Loans, Advances, Credits and Finances) Act, 
1997 (the repealed Act), on 11.5.2001 (the judgment and decree). 
 
3. 
 
The attachment and sale of the property, as noted above, 
was sought on the ground that the same, at the time the above 
judgment and decree was pronounced, belonged to the respondent 
No.3, who is a judgment debtor in terms of the aforesaid judgment 
and decree, and the sale of the property by the respondent No.3, after 
the said judgment, through a sale deed registered on 18.8.2001, 
being violative of the restriction placed by the Sub-section (2) of 
Section 23 of the Financial Institutions (Recovery of Finances) 
Ordinance, 2001 (the 2001 Ordinance), was/is, as prescribed by the 
said provision, void and of no legal effect, and the property is thus 
available and liable to be sold towards the satisfaction of the 
respondent No.3’s liability under the judgement and decree. 
 
4. 
 
Heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused 
the record with their assistance. 
 
5. 
 
Indeed in terms of sub-section 2 of Section 23 of the 
2001 ordinance, sale/disposition by the judgment debtor, of his 
property, after pronouncement of a judgment and decree by the 
Banking Court, without a written permission of the Banking Court is 
void. The text of the above provision runs as follows:  
“(2) After 
pronouncement 
of 
judgment 
and 
decree by the Banking Court, including an 
interim decree under section 11, no judgment-
debtor shall without the prior written permission 
of 
the 
Banking 
Court 
transfer, 
alienate, 
encumber or part with possession of any assets 
or properties and any such transfer, alienation, 
CA 51/2011 
3
encumbrance 
or 
other 
disposition 
by 
a 
judgment-debtor in violation of this sub-section 
shall be void and of no legal effect.” 
 
6. 
 
Now, the essential prerequisite for a sale of the nature as 
described by the above provision, to attract the restriction and to 
suffer the consequences as prescribed thereby, is the pronouncement 
of a judgment and decree by “the Banking Court”, such being the 
Court as described thereby, and therefore the judgment and decree 
that meets the requirement, is the one that is rendered by the 
Banking Court and of no other Court. Whereas “Banking Court”, in 
respect of a case, (i) in which the claim does not exceed hundred 
million rupees, (as in the present case), and for the trial of offences 
under the 2001 Ordinance, in terms of section 2(b) (i), (ii) means, a 
court established under section 5 of the 2001 Ordinance, and in 
respect of any other case, the High Court. While section 5 of the 2001 
Ordinance, enables the Federal Government to establish Banking 
Courts to exercise jurisdiction under the said Ordinance. Therefore 
‘The Banking Court” in the context of section 23(2) of the 2001 
Ordinance, is the Court established by virtue of section 5 of the 2001 
Ordinance, and the thus the judgment and decree required to invoke 
the provisions of section 23(2) of the 2001 Ordinance, is the 
judgment and decree passed by a Banking Court established as 
above, and not any other Court and, for that matter, not a Banking 
Court that was established under the repealed Act. However, in the 
present case the judgment and decree sought to be enforced and on 
the basis whereof the respondent-bank has invoked section 23(2) of 
the 2001 Ordinance, was rendered under the repealed Act and was 
pronounced by a Banking Court established under the said Act, the 
same is therefore wholly irrelevant for the purposes of section 23(2) of 
CA 51/2011 
4
the 2001 Ordinance, and cannot be of any help to the respondent 
No.1 in invoking the said provision. 
 
7. 
 
Even otherwise the sale deed in respect of the property 
was executed by respondent No.3, in favour of the appellant on 
18.8.2001, prior to the 2001 Ordinance, that was promulgated on 
30.8.2001, and whereby the 1979 Act was repealed and replaced by a 
new law as such, and upon registration of the sale deed on 
11.4.2002, whereupon the property came to be invested in the 
appellant, vesting its title in the appellant exclusively, from the date 
the sale deed was executed, i.e. 18.8.2001, from which date the 
respondent No.3 ceased to have any right or interest in/or over the 
property at all. The sale/transfer of the property in favour of the 
appellant on 18.8.2001, thus became a past and closed transaction 
and could not have been put into jeopardy through an application 
purportedly seeking to invoke the provision of section 23(2) of the 
2001 Ordinance, on 23.8.2004. The 2001 Ordinance does not, either 
expressly or impliedly, provide for any retrospective application of the 
provision of section 23(2) thereof, the same cannot therefore operate 
to reverse or undo a transaction which took effect from 18.8.2001, 
prior to the date the said provision and the law containing the same, 
i.e. 2001 Ordinance, came into existence. 
 
8. 
 
It is now well settled that when the legislator alters the 
rights of parties by taking away or conferring any right of action, its 
enactments, unless in express terms they apply to pending actions, 
do not affect them1. It is the general rule of the common law that the 
statute changing the law ought not, unless the intention appears 
with reasonably certainty to be understood as applied to facts, or 
events that have already occurred in such a way as to confer or 
                                                
1 PLD 1969 SC 187 
CA 51/2011 
5
impose or otherwise effect rights or liabilities which the law had 
defined with references to past events. 2 
 
9. 
 
Indeed it is true that in terms of section 54 of the 
Transfer of Property Act, 1882, the transfer of immoveable property of 
the value of hundred rupees and upwards can be made only by 
registered instrument, whereas in terms of section 49 of the 
Registration Act, 1908, a document, which is required to be 
registered under the said Act, can operate to create any right, title or 
interest in any immoveable property, only if it is so registered. 
However, section 47 of the Registration Act, clearly lays down that a 
registered document shall operate from the time from which it would 
have commenced to operate if no registration thereof had been 
required or made, and not from the time of its registration.3 
 
10. 
 
In view of the foregoing, we have found the order of the 
Banking Court not to be in consonance with law and would therefore 
allow this appeal and set-aside the impugned judgment.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judge 
 
 
Judge 
 
 
Judge 
 
Islamabad, the 
Announced in open Court on _______________ 
at __________________ 
 
 
                                               Judge 
‘APPROVED FOR REPORTING’ 
(Aamir Sh.) 
( 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                
2 (1957) 96 CLR 261, 267 
3PLD 2003 SC 818 
