2007 PLP (C (PLC(CS))

IFTIKHAR MUHAMMAD CHAUDHRY, J.

The petitioner seeks leave to appeal against judgment, dated 14-10-2003, passed by the Federal Service Tribunal, Lahore, (hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal) whereby appeals filed by the petitioner were dismissed.

2. Precisely stating facts giving rise to the instant petitions are that respondents got relief from the Labour Court after having instituted applications under section 25-A of I.R.O. in respect of pensionary benefits. The petitioners preferred appeals before the Labour Appellate Tribunal, which were accepted on 12-11-1997. Against this order the respondents preferred writ petition which came up for hearing before a learned Single Judge of the Lahore High Court, who in view of the section 2-A of the Service Tribunals Act, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) accepted the writ petition on 19-10-1999 holding that Labour Appellate Tribunal had ceased to have jurisdiction, therefore, it was not competent to decide the appeals filed by the petitioners. Thereafter, the petitioner approached the Tribunal for redressal of its grievance but without any success. Against this order, civil petitions for leave to appeal were filed before this Court under Article 212(3) of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The same came up for hearing before a larger Bench of this Court along with other cases involving identical point. The petitions were disposed of vide judgment, dated 28-9-2001.

3. On remand of the cases, the Tribunal vide impugned judgment dismissed the appeals of the petitioner, as such, instant petitions have been filed.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that under section 4 of the Act, only a civil servant can approach the Tribunal for redressal of his grievance. As far as the grievance of the employer is concerned, it has no remedy before the Tribunal for redressal of its grievance. In our opinion, this argument is not available to the learned counsel; firstly for the reason that after the decisions of the High Court dated 19th October, 1999, petitioner filed appeal before Service Tribunal; secondly on getting no relief, approached to this Court by filing petitions under Article 212(3) of the Constitution and ultimately accepted the decision of this Court dated 28th September, 2001, and thirdly under the provisions of section 6 of the Act and in view of the Full Bench judgment reported as Federation of Pakistan v. Muhammad Sadiq 1980 SCMR 443 wherein identical question i.e. whether the Tribunal has jurisdiction to entertain the appeal of employer has been answered as under:

"It is true that in the proviso to section 6 of the Ordinance which preceded the Act, it was specified that a civil servant, who was a party to suit, appeal or application which abated under the purview of section 6 could prefer an appeal to the appropriate Tribunal. But in the Act itself a change was brought about in the language of the proviso. The phrase any civil servant who is a party to such a suit' was substituted by the phrase any party to such a suit'. The Act was promulgated on the 29th of September, 1973 while the appeal before the Service Tribunal in the said case was filed on the 24th of October, 1974. If this change would have been brought to the notice of the High Court, the observation that the Service Tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear appeal or to entertain any proceedings of any kind whatsoever at the instance of the Government", would not have been made." As such, the argument of the learned counsel being without any substance is repelled.

5. The learned counsel next contended that the Tribunal had failed to take into consideration as to whether the respondents fall within the definition of workman or the civil servant. In our considered opinion this point was also not available to the petitioner as it was not agitated before the Tribunal. Actually the case was remanded to the Tribunal by this Court presuming that respondents are civil servants within the meaning of section 2-A of the Act. Besides it, it would not be out of contract to note that the appeals which were filed by the petitioners after decision of the writ petition by a learned Single Judge of the Lahore High Court have been considered by the Tribunal to be hopelessly time-barred. This may be noted that section 2-A was promulgated on 10-6-1997 and thereafter a good number of judgments were pronounced by this Court settling the controversy between the employer and the employee for invoking jurisdiction of the Tribunal, therefore, in view of the law laid down by this Court in the case of Federation of Pakistan (ibid) it was incumbent upon the petitioner to have approached the Tribunal within reasonable time and Tribunal rightly refused to give relief to the petitioner considering its appeals barred by time without offering plausible explanation.

6. Thus for the foregoing reasons, we are of the opinion that the impugned judgment is not open to any exception, as such instant petitions are dismissed and leave declined. M.H./C-7/SC Petition dismissed.