The major mistake the Sikhs made was to allow the 'other factors' in the terms of reference to be vague and open to interpretation. The Sikhs should have held back on accepting the decision in advance unless the other factors were properly defined and equal weightage given to them with population. If equal weightage had been given then given that the Hindus and Sikhs virtually owned the whole of the city of Lahore and had a majority of the businesses, factories, schools, colleges etc and that the Sikhs owned about 58% of the land in Lahore district then it should have gone to East Punjab in 1947. As far as I know the boundary commission never had an appeals process. Because they representatives of all the communities could not agree to anything then Radcliffe was given the final decision and you are right he made a right hash of the partition line. The British chose someone who had never been to India and did not know the ground realities present in Punjab.
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