1976 PLP 519 (PLC)

S. 1(3)-Employees of commercial/industrial establishment estab lished and controlled by Government under West Pakistan Cooperative Development Board Ordinance, 1962 and West Pakistan Cooperative Board Dissolution (Punjab Amendment) Ordinance, 1971 Not excluded from provisions of Ordinance. The question involved was whether the expression, "persons employed in the administration of State" in section 1(3) of Industrial Relations Ordi nance, 1969 covered employees of a Karkhana established and controlled by Government under the provisions of the West Pakistan Cooperative Development Board Ordinance, 1962 and West Pakistan Cooperative Board Dissolution (Punjab Amendment) Ordinance, 1971 and they were excluded from the ambit of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969. Held: Persons exercising administrative functions in public service are excluded from the purview of the Industrial Relations Ordinance but the balanced view would be that all the Government employees at whatsoever level of public service should be deemed to be "employed in the administration of State" provided the public office held by them involves the exercise of public power, in howsoever small amount, in relation to the sovereign functions of the State. In other words the civil servant employed in the primary administration of State in any public department within the paramount setup of civil administration are excluded from the scope of the Ordinance. However, the persons "em ployed in any commercial enterprise set up as a project or a statutory corporate body under the authority of the State for the performance of certain delegated functions can hardly be said to be "employed in the administration of State" unless it can be shown that the said employees are entrusted with the performance of purely sovereign functions of the State. On this view of the matter the contention urged on behalf of the 'Karkhana' stands repelled that the employees of the 'Karkhana' working under the control of the Government may be deemed to be the public servants in the sense that they are employed "in the administration of State". The expression "person employed in the administration of State" may not be narrowly construed by unnecessarily restricting it to mean that only persons exercising administrative functions of the State should be deemed to be excluded from the scope of the Ordinance, but the persons practically serving the primary administration of the State at all levels in relation to the exercise of its sovereign functions stand excluded from the scope of the Ordinance. However, the employees of the statutory local projects or corporations created in exercise of the sovereign power of the State to function in the nature of industrial or commercial establishments become amenable to the provisions of the Ordinance, inasmuch as they stand out of the field of the primary State administration and only serve its commercial interests in the nature of private industry. Consequently, the employees of the `Karkhana' in the present case stand within the scope of the Ordinance not because they could not be shown to have been exercising administrative functions of the State while being employ ed in the administration of State but because they could not fundamentally be found to be employed in the administration of State. The Secretary, Provincial Buildings, Hyderabad v. X. E. N., Principal Buildings and another 1972 P L C 285, Sind Road Transport and 2 others v. Staff Union and 2 others 1975 P L C 361; Management of Municipal Committee, Mianawali v. The General Secretary. Municipal Muharrirs Union etc. 1968 P L C 270 and Salah-ud-Din and 2 others v. Frontier Sugar Mills and Distillery Ltd., Takhtbhai and 10 others P L D 1975 S C 244 ref. Management of Municipal Committee, Mianwali, v. General Secretary, Muharrirs' Union etc. 1968 P L C 270 rel. The above cited five appeals have been filed on behalf of the Project Director, Cc-operative Karkhana Alaat-e-Zari, Bahawalpur, herein after mentioned as the appellant Management, against the five orders separately passed on 25-4-75 in favour of Mushtaq Ahmed. Javid Akhtar, Muhammad Sadiq, Hafiz Muhammad Ashraf and Muhammad Afsar workmen directing their re-instatement with all back benefits by setting aside the orders of retrenchment passed against them by the appellant Manage ment on 28-9-74 in regard to Hafiz Muhammad Ashraf, Javid Akhtar, and Mushtaq Ahmed, respondents, and on 10-10-74 and 25-9-74 in regard to Muhammad Sadiq and Muhammad Afsar, respondents, respectively. Ex parte orders of re-instatement were passed in favour of the workers by the learned lower Court in view of the non-appearance of any representative of the appellant Management on the date of final hearing. Since common questions of law and fact are to be determined in all the five appeals, the present decision will dispose of them all and the respondents of all the appeals will hereinafter be referred to as a single respondent for the sake of convenience. Preliminary legal objection raised as one of the grounds of appeal is that the Junior Labour Court had no jurisdiction to hear the case by virtue of the bar provided in section 1(3) of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969, hereinafter referred to as the Ordinance. Arguments have been given in detail from both sides on the proposition whether the employees of Co-operative Karkhana Alaat-e-Zari, Bahawalpur, hereinafter mentioned as the Karkhana , should or should not be deemed to be `'employed in the administration of State" and for that matter what is the real meaning or import of the expression occurring in the said subsection. It is urged on behalf of the appellant Management that the `Karkhana' is working as a Government agency brought into existence under the provisions of West Pakistan Co-operative Development Board Ordinance, 1962, for the purpose of promoting the development of the Co-operative movement in West Pakistan, that the said Ordinance XIV of 1962, was repealed through West Pakistan Co-operative Board Dissolution (Punjab Amendment) Ordinance, 1971, and an administrator was appointed by the Government under section 4 for winding up the affairs of the Board and, inter alia, for administering the projects sponsored and managed by the Board immediately before its dissolution chat as the Karkhana operated by the appellant Management is controlled by the Government through the administrator and every employee working under him to be deemed to be a public servant under section 9, the Karkhana must be considered to be working as Government concern and on that score the employees of the "Karkhana" must be deemed to be engaged in the administration of State and excluded from the purview of the Ordinance. On the other hand, it is contended for the respondent that the expression "any person employed in the administration of State should be narrowly construed with a limited import and should be restricted in its application to such persons who are exercising administrative functions of the State and cannot be utilised for the persons employed in any commercial concern like the 'Karkhana', though, established under the authority of the Government. The learned counsel for the respondent, in support of his contention, relied on the judgment given in "The Secretary, Provincial Buildings, Hyderabad, v. X. E. N., Provincial Buildings and another (1972 P L C 285), in which it was held that keeping in view the intention of the Legislature to confer the benefit of Labour laws on as many persons as would be covered by the definition of workman, the phrase "employed in the administration of State" must be strictly construed, that it is noteworthy that the Legislature did not say "any person employed in the Government service" and that the intention of the Legislature in framing subsection (3) of section 1 of the Ordinance was not to deprive all the persons serving the government of the benefits of the Ordinance. The important High Court authorities quoted in support of the position are : Sind Road Transport and two others v. Staff Union and two others (1975 P L C 361) and The Manager of Municipal Committee, Mian wali v. The General Secretary, Municipal Muharrirs' Union etc. (1968 P L C 270). In reply to the contentions of the respondent, it has been urged on behalf of the appel lant Management that when the public functions involving exercise of public power are performed by persons or agencies directly appointed, controlled and financed by the State and the Government retains effective control over their functioning by appointing the beads of these agencies or corporations, such persons and their subordinates would be deemed to be performing their functions in connection wish the affairs of the State in different fields of national development through their respective corporate bodies. It has, therefore, been argued that the employees of such corporate bodies even at the lower strata must be deemed to be integrally associated with and engaged in the administration of State and as such excluded from the benefits given to the purely working class of the private industrial concerns under the Ordinance. It is contended that as the 'Karkhana' in the form of a government Project directly functions under the authority of the Government with the control of the organization substantially vesting in the Government in exercise of its sovereign powers, substantial funds also being provided by the state, its employees being civil servants of the State and being in the service of Pakistan with special rules of service governing their conduct and terms and conditions of service, they cannot be made to stand in line with the industrial workers for the special benefits contemplated under the Ordinance. An authority of Supreme Court Re: Salah-ud-Din and 2 others Frontier Sugar Mills and Distillery Ltd., Takhtbhai and 10 others (P L D 1975 S C 244), was cited and relied on for these contentions. In the light of the authorities quoted on both sides, I cannot see eye to eye with the first part of the contention of the learned counsel for the respondent, for the reasons to be presently shown by me, that only persons exercising administrative functions in public service are excluded from the purview of the Ordinance but the balanced view would be that all the Government employees, at whatever level of public service should be deemed be "employed in the administration of State" provided the public, office geld by them involves the exercise of public power, in howsoever small amount, in relation to the sovereign functions of the State. In other words the civil servant employed in the primary administration of State in any public department within the paramount set up of civil administration are excluded from the scope of the Ordinance. However, the other part of tine contention, cannot be accepted that the persons "employed in any commercial enterprise set up as a Project or a statutory corporate body under the authority of the State for the performance of certain delegated functions can hardly be said to he "employed in the administration of State" unless it can be shown that the said employees are entrusted with the performance of purely sovereign functions of the State. On this view of the matter the contention urged on behalf of the 'Karkhana' stands repelled that the employees ox the 'Karkhana' working under the control of the Government may be deemed to be the public servants in the sense that they are employed "in the administration of State". Since the first part of the respondent's contention has far reaching implications, the point has to be elaborated in the light of some amount of discussion in detail. "It shall not apply to any person employed in the police or any of the defence services of Pakistan and any services or installations connected with or incidental to Armed Forces of Pakistan including an Ordnance Factory maintained by the Federal Government or to any person employed in the administration of State other than those employed as workmen by the Railways, Posts, Telegraphs and Telephone Departments." An ordinary perusal of the provision in relation to the phrase 'other than those employed as workmen by the railways etc, reveals that the departments of Railways, Post, Telegraphs and Telephones have been clearly included in the administration of State and only the workmen of these departments have specifically been included to fall 'within the scope of Ordinance while every person, whether a workman or not, employed in the administration of State has been excluded from the purview of the Ordinance. No doubt, the departments of police and defence services are, also parts of the State adminis tration and why they have been separately mentioned is for the sake of emphasis that any person relating to the service of police in any capacity whatsoever and any person employed in the defence services or installations incidental to such services would stand excluded from the scope of the Ordinance. On the other hand a person "employed in the administration of State" is one who is on the regular cadre of the civil service in exclusion of the work-charged or contingent employees or apprentices. But the latter classes of employees must be deemed to be included in the police service and defence service for the purpose of their exclusion from the stop of Ordinance. So on the construction of the plain language of the provision as well as on the grammatical construction thereof, the meaning of phrase in question cannot be other than the one already given i.e., any person, employed in purely Government Department would not be amenable to the provisions of the Ordinance. It is to be further not that the connotation of the phrase in question when assessed in retrospect in relation to the legislation preceding the Ordinance i.e., West Pakistan Industrial Disputes Ordinance, 1968, the same view is armed. Under the latter Ordinance, the law relating to the industrial disputes was consolidated in the Province of West Pakistan and the benefits of the Ordi nance were extended to persons falling within the definition of "workman". The definition of "Workman" therein expressly excluded the persons employed anywhere in the managerial or administrative capacity and also the persons employed in the Government service other than those working in a factory or in railways or in any other establishment, undertaking department, profession or se-vice declared by the Government to be an industrial establish ment or service for the purposes of the Ordinance. There is no denying the fact that the Labour laws are enacted to ensure the welfare of the labour class of workers of the enterprises working in the nature of purely industrial or commercial establishments and can hardly be confuse vita the class of Government servants working in civil administration of State. At the same time the administration of the State in its primary phase cannot be said to be performing any functions other than sovereign functions and for that matter all its employees must be regarded to be performing in some amount of the other functions of sovereign nature while exercising public power proportionate to the nature of their duties. The argument that by enacting section 1(3) of the Ordinance the intention of the, Legislaturewas to confer the benefits of Labour laws on as many persons as would be covered by the definition of 'Workman' whether they are employed in the factories or in the Government Departments stands rebutted by the fact that the applicability of the Ordinance has not primarily been subjected to the roof of a workman but has been based on a different classification in which certain classes of service have been entirely excluded from the provisions of the Ordinance and in some other services only workmen have been made amenable thereto. Secondly, it is to be noted that the expression "administration of State" has been used in International Labour Organization (I.L.O.) convention No. 98 enforced on 18th July 1951, under which certain principles regarding the organisation of the labour class and its protection against acts of discrimination were accepted. Article 5 of the said convention provided for the guarantees to be applied to the armed forces and the police which were left to be determined by the State laws. Article 6 therefore specifically excluded the application of the convention to public servants engaged in the administration of State. These articles have been referred to in the High Court authority cited on behalf of the respondent himself i.e., 1975 P L C 361. This being so the Government of Pakistan cannot be supposed to extend the benefits over and above those of the I. L. O. convention No. 98 to the public servants as an extraordinary concession which not only have not been envisaged by the convention but have been, on the contrary, specifically excluded in relation to the public servants i.e., the employees "engaged in the administra tion of State" in the words of the convention itself. Accordingly, no intention of including public servants of the primary administration of the State in the scope of the Ordinance can be attributed to the Legislature. It may be pointed out that Pakistan which is still in the process of development in the major national fields including the sphere of administration, administrative maturity of a high level which most expensive organiza tion of civil service has to be ensured as a pre requisite to the extension of all kinds of labour concessions to the civil servants engaged in the administra tion of State up to administrative level. This would mean including all the Government servants within whole of the non-gazetted field of service in such concessions. Such an unusual allowance might lead to unforeseen complications and difficulties of vital import. For instance, the right of strike recognised in favour of industrial workers corresponds to the right of lock-up given to the employer, which works as balancing factor regarding an industrial dispute in a private industrial organization but not in any Depart mental set up of the State administration. In the provisions of I. R. O., 1969, the processes of initiation, negotiation, conciliation, arbitration or adjudication of an industrial dispute are adequately workable in industrial concerns where purely labour class is at work but it can scarcely be thought to be practicable for the employer of a Government department to implement these processes successfully while maintaining necessary peace and discipline within the ranks of civil servants in the civil administration. The modern processes of administrative law carried through the administrative tribunals provide the answer to the problem leaving the industrial disputes, the regulation of Trade Union and the individual grievances of the factory exclusively to the Labour Court. Under the provisions of the Ordinance, there may be a dispute between the workers (C. B. A.) and the Industrial Management regarding the employment or non employment of certain workers (section 22 (12) (a), the representation of workers on a board of trustees or the worker's participation fund (section 22 (12) (d), the workers participation in Manage ment (section 23(b), the framing of service rules including policy about promo tion and discipline) section 23 (b) (6). representation of workers in the works council (section 24) or even the very appointment of otherwise of any employer as the definition of industrial dispute suggests. All such differences can be amicably and peacefully settled in the industrial sphere of enterprise. But the picture of any such dispute raised by the Trade Union of civil servants can easily take a different colour and be turned into a political dispute on account of the conception of State being fundamentally based on a political system and thus the elementary cause of peaceful exercise of public power may be seriously affected. Because the civil servants of the primary State administration are regarded to be employed in the unique functions of Government their integrity and loyalty to the sovereign authority of the State thus car, be affected and the exercise of the public power in performance of the important functions of the State can be badly interfered under the aforesaid processes as no public servant of howsoever low rank can be dissociated from the interaction and inter dependence of the whole body of public functionaries from the highest to the lowest in such performance. Public administration, traditionally defined, comprises certain activities involved in carrying out the policy and programme of the Government. The administration in general not only relates to planning and directing of the Government Policy and programme, it also includes co-ordinating and assisting the Government operations at all levels of its machinery to implement and effect those policies and programmes. This being so, no person once accepted as public servant, at howsoever lower rank of service, can stand out from the administration and be susceptible of the self abuse of raising differences in the nature of industrial dispute. In other words Government administration in its primary organization is of pyramidal character by which a supreme executive authority oversees a few subordinates cure-associates who exercise most superior functions. The latter in their turn oversee their subordinates who are in turn again responsible for overseeing other subordinates and so on with the ultimate object of carrying out the State functions and getting their every detail executed through the last man in the chain of public service without whose full participation the process of execution remains in complete and whole of the edifice of public authority stands affected. Public administration is closely concerned with the efficiency of procedure by which the public decisions are not only reached or adopted but are also effected and executed through the subordinate ranks of service to the lowest bottom. A civil service is, therefore apt to be organized on standard lines in a chain of command to make all the employees obedient to the lawful orders of the superiors and in order to effectively maintain this system, the heirarchy of offices are marked by fixed positions with well-defined duties and salaries objectively assessed. Thus the Government or State administration in its primary phase is a set of formal legal institutions working in set processes of interaction in which no person employed at any level as an instrument of public power can stand out to be treated differently from others in the interest of equitable discharge of the sovereign functions of the State. This is as far as the primary civil administration of the State is concerned. However what has given rise to the difficulties in this behalf is the modern theme of the public administration, which stands for improving the currant administrative processes and reforming the socio-economic structure of the national society. Economic planning is a dominating concern of public administration in many of the developing countries. No longer is the Government merely the keeper of the peace and provides of basic security of person arA property. In the postindustrial era the Government apart from its responsibilities in regard to usual civil administration has become principal innovator, a determinant of social and economic priorities and an. entrepreneur on a major scale. This has led the Govern ment to launch large-scale schemes and projects in the nature of industrial and commercial establishments either through nationalization of industries or through statutory corporate bodies. This has, of course, necessitated for a way out to meet the demands of the workers employed in such concerns in regard to the terms and conditions of their service, which are to be kept at par with the other ordinary workers of the private industry. This has led to mike distinction between the factory workers or industrial employees working in purely industrial or commercial establish ments and the civil servants or public functionaries working under the direct control of the Government. Because ordinarily the industrial workers outside the pale of primary administration can only be made the beneficiaries of the special benefits of the labour laws in the interest of au efficient State administration and satisfactory discharge of sovereign State functions. As for the employees of the primary State administration, even though, carrying on duties involving, in some measure, occupations of industrial nature, primarily being regarded as public functionaries or civil servants of the State are apt to be treated regarding their conditions of service on different footing. To meet the situation many Governments have found it prudent to establish permanent constitutional administrative channels through which civil servants of the primary State administration can get regulated the matters relating to their conditions of service and their discipline and promotion procedure. To carry out this object, as already pointed out, the process of administrative law carried through Administrative Tribunals has to be resorted to. The Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan has accordingly provided in section 212 for the Establishment of Provincial Administrative Corms or Tribunals to exercise exclusive jurisdiction in respect of the matters relating to the terms and conditions of the civil servants of Pakistan including disciplinary matters provided the said constitutional provision is extended to such Provincial Courts or Tribunals under the Act of the Parliament. Accordingly the Administrative Tribunals have been established under the Provincial Governments to exercise the said exclusive jurisdiction under the sanction of the Central Legislature through Provincial Service Tribunals (Extension of the Provisions of Constitu tion) Act, 1974. The working of the Punjab Administrative Tribunal stands regulated through the Punjab Administrative Tribunals Act, 1974, which appeals to all civil servants throughout the Punjab and the Tribunal is to exercise exclusive jurisdiction in respect of the matters aforementioned under the Constitution. Under section 8 of the Act, all suits, appeals arid applications pending in any Court immediately after the establishment of the Tribunal have abated and the matter directed to be brought before the Trtburtal within 90 days. Under section 2 (b) a civil servant has been defined as follows Section 2 (b).- "Civil servant means a person who is or has been a member of civil service of the Province or has held a civil post in connection with the affairs of the Province but does not include (i) A person who is or who has been on deputation to the Province from the Federation or other Province or Authority. (ii) A person who is or who has been employed on contract or on work-charged basis or who is or has been paid from contingencies. (iii) A person who is a worker or who has been a workman as defined in the Factories Act, 1934, or in the Workmen, Compensation Act, 1923. " The Punjab Civil Servants Act, 1974, regulates the appointment to and the terms and conditions of service in respect of the services of the Punjab Province under section 3 whereof Punjab Civil Service (Appointment & Conditions of Service) Rules, 1974, have been enforced. A civil servant in tire Punjab Civil Servants Act, 1974, has been defined on the lines similar to the definition given under the Punjab Administrative Tribunals Act, 1974. Civil service literally connotes a body of Government officials who are employed in civil occupation of Government performing functions of civil administration at all levels except tie Navy, Army and Air Force. Ordinarily civil servant is an official in the civil service irrespective of the rank or status unless it is statutorily re-defined to follow the purpose of any special enactment. Accordingly under the aforesaid two Provincial enact ments every person holding a civil post in connection with the affairs of the Province is a civil servant except the workman as defined in the Workmen's Compensation Act or Factories Act or the one employed in civic service on work charged basis or out of contingencies. It is to be noted that a workman as defined in the Ordinance has not been excluded from the definition of the civil servant. A worker under the Factories Act means a person employed is any manufacturing process of a factory or in any other kind of work incidental to or connected with the Manufacturing processes. The worker under the Workmen's Compensation Act is to claim a remedy only against an injury of any kind suffered through his employment in manufacturing processes of a factory or through his employment in other specified categories of labour. Accordingly a civil servant under the Punjab Civil Servants Act or the Punjab Administrative Tribunals Act, 1974, cover an extensive field of civil service and on that score the expression "any person employed in the administration of State" occurring in section 1(3) of the Ordinance must be regarded to stand in consonance with the Provincial enactments regulating the civil service encompass ing, the employees of the civil service at all levels. What now survives to be determined is whether the employees of a corporate body or a commercial project run on behalf of tire Government can ire deemed to be in the administration of State. I am of the view that in order to be a part of the State administration they have to show either to be the employees of the State administration in its primary phase in any public office exercising sovereign functions of the State or while being employees of statutory corporation or project they have to prove themselves exercising the same nature of functions. There is, however, no question of the exercise of any such functions in regard to the employees working in the Karkhana in the present case operating in the nature of a commercial establishment. As regards the industry carried ou in the `Karkhana' the learned counsel for the appellant has stated that it manufactures agricultural implements for sale to agriculturists and the proceeds of the sale are utilized for the expansion and development of Co-operative societies in order to promote the co-operative movement on national scale. In regard to the distinction between the sovereign or regal functions and ordinary public or municipal functions of the State or a local body. I am fortified in any view by the valuable observations made in the esteemed judgment of the Division Bench of the Lahore High Court in The Management of Municipal Committee, Mianwali v. General Secretary, Muharrirs Union (1968 P L C 270), in the following terms : "In so far as the Municipal Committee performs the functions of levying and collecting the taxes it is only performing a governmental function. The workmen who are engaged by the Municipal Com mittee to perform the functions, which are in the nature of the regal, or the sovereign functions of the Government and have been delegated to the committee will not fall within the category of workmen and any dispute between them and the "Municipal Committee will there fore be not an industrial dispute. In this view of the matter, the staff of the Municipal Committee which ate employed in connection with the collection of the taxes exclusively will not be workmen because the activities of the Municipal Committee such as assessing and collecting taxes which pertains to the sovereign functions of the State and have been delegated to the Committee, bear no relationship with the term 'Industry'. Where the octroi Muharrirs have to perform no other functions except to collect the octroi duty, they were not workmen within the meaning of the Industrial Disputes Ordinance and any dispute between them and the Municipal Committee was not an industrial dispute " No doubt, the above observations were made by his Lordship Mr. Justice Sardar Muhammad Iqbal in relation to the provisions of Industrial Dispute Ordinance, 1959, which was priorly in force in place of the ordinance but the well-known terms of the labour laws like 'Industrial dispute', 'Employer', 'Industry', 'Workmen' and 'Undertaking' were taken into consideration by his Lordship as to their connotation in framing the view which terms have not under-gone any change in substance in relation to the proposition of the sovereign or non-sovereign functions of the State or a local body. It can, therefore, be fairly concluded that the expression "person employed in the administration of State" may not be narrowly construed by unnecessarily restricting it to mean that only Persons exercising administrative functions of the State should be deemed to be excluded from the scope of the Ordinance, but the persons practically serving the primary administration of the State at all levels in relation to the exercise of its sovereign functions stand excluded from the scope of the Ordinance. However, the employees of the statutory local projects or corporations created in exercise of the sovereign power of the State to function in the nature of industrial or commercial establishments become amenable to the provisions of the Ordinance, inasmuch as they stand out of the field of the primary State administration and only serve its commercial interests in the nature of private industry. Consequently .he employees of the c 'Karkhana' in the present case stand within the scope of the Ordinance no because they could not be shown to have been exercising administrative functions of the State while being employed in the administration of State but because they could not fundamentally be found to be employed in the administration of State. In Salah-ud-Din's case of the Supreme Court, cited on behalf of the appellant, altogether a different positions was before the Court. The case was decided in appellate writ jurisdiction holding that a public limited Company ordinarily cannot be regarded as a person performing functions in connection with the affairs of the State, a Province or a local authority simply for the reason that its functioning is regulated by a statute; yet nevertheless the offices held by its directors and its chief executive must be regarded as public offices inasmuch as they involve the public duties which are of the greatest importance to the public interest in the field of the operations of the public joint stock company under the Company law. As a consequence it was further ruled that the directors and the Chief Executive of a joint stock company fall within the purview of clause 2 (b) (ii) of the Article 199 of the Constitution which permits the High Court to issue a writ in the nature of a quo warranto requiring a person within its territorial jurisdiction holding or purporting to hold a .,,public office to show under what authority he claims to hold that office. Thus the rule was given by the Supreme Court in altogether a different context, although, it was observed by the learned Court while giving the connotation of the expression "a person performing functions in connection with the affairs of the federation" that there has been manifest a growing tendency on the part of the Government to create statutory corporations for undertaking important functions of the State particularly in the industrial and commercial spheres while retaining effective control over their function. ing by appointing the heads and other senior officers of these corporations and by supplying funds for financing their activities and that the examples of such statutory corporations are the National Bank of Pakistan. The West Pakistan Water & Power Development Authority. The National Shipping Corporation, The Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan and the large number of industries functioning under their respective statutes. On account of their common attributes, it was held that they have all been regarded as persons performing functions in connection with the affairs of Federation or a Province. Now persons performing function in connection with the affairs of a Federation or a Province by virtue of holding some public offices to be amen able to the writ jurisdiction of the High Court is one thing and the persons employed in the administration of State and as such not amenable to the provisions of the Ordinance is something other making altogether a different proposition. In the one, it is the amenability of the officers of a corporate body holding offices to the writ jurisdiction of the High Court and in the other it is the amenability of the employees of the State administration to the benefits of the Ordinance, the two propositions calling for altogether different considerations for formulating the rule of the Court. In the background of the foregoing discussion, the conclusion that can fairly be availed is that the appellant 'Karkhana' as a statutory project purely functions in the nature of a commercial establishment and as such its employees not being persons "employed in the administration of State" are entitled to the benefits of the Ordinance like the employees of any other private industry. The point of jurisdiction being decided in favour of the respondent and his status as worker under the Ordinance not being successfully contro verted by the Management, the appeal has been considered on merits, The respondent was an employee under the appellant Management and was terminated by way of retrenchment under the order of Project Director. It is urged on behalf of the respondent that he was terminated without assigning any reason to his termination in flagrant disregard of Standing Order 12 (3) of the West Pakistan Industrial & Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968. On the other hand, it is contended that the obligations of law were completely fulfilled in respect to the termination of the respondent and that the appellant-Management was proceeded ex parte by the learned lower Court in which the appellant could not produce the necessary documents in support of his case. A reference to the record of the learned lower Court reveals that the impugned order was passed without recording any evidence and even without getting the order of termination in question or a copy thereof placed on record to look Into the necessary implications of the order which was the basis of the petition under section 25-A. Consequently, the impugned order cannot be said to have been validly passed on the basis of any lawful justification without even directing the respondent to place the necessary documents on record for passing an ex parte order. Under the circumstances it has become necessary that the case should be re-heard on merits by remanding the case to the trial stage. Accordingly, the appeal being accepted, the case is remanded for a fresh trial. Since the Junior Labour Courts in the Punjab have been abolished and all the pending cases of the Junior Labour Court, Rahimyar Khan, have been transferred to this Court by the force of law, the present case will be re-heard by this Court.' The parties are directed to produce their complete evidence along4Ath tire necessary documents on the next date. To come up on 11-5-76 for further proceedings.