Judgement

Appeal from a decree of the Chief Court (December 16, 1907) reversing a decree of the District Judge of Multan (April 15, 1907).

The question decided was whether the appellant or his pre-decessors in title had created a valid and irrevocable waqf of the land in suit, dedicating it in perpetuity to the use of the Mahomedans in Multan as a cemetery.

The respondents sued as Mahomedan residents of Multan City having the right to bury their dead in the land in suit and for a declaration that it was graveyard in possession of the Mahomedan community, with consequential relief against the appellant, who had advertised portions of the land for sale as his own property. The appellant pleaded that the land was owned and possessed by him with full power of transfer, which he had frequently exercised by sales and leases, and that it was not waqf or graveyard.

The District Judge dismissed the suit, finding " that the defendant had never treated the land as waqf, that he had sold from time to time any clear spaces for building, had leased others and had realized miscellaneous income from the whole, and had asserted his rights as landlord by exacting a due of 3 pies per grave from those