1997 PLP 367 (PLC)

Muhammad Tariq Draishak for Petitioner. Ch. M. Khalid Farooq for Respondent. Date of hearing: 28th February, 1996. By this judgment, rendered in the revision petition captioned above, I propose to dispose of as many as seven identical Revision Petitions (Nos.342/95, 343/95 and 430/95 to 434/95), calling in question soundness of the orders rendered by the learned Labour Court at Multan, rejecting the establishment's applications moved for dismissal of the employees' grievance petitions, filed under section 25‑A, Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969, praying for their reinstatement in service, with all consequential benefits. .

2. Learned counsel for the employer relies on 1994 SCMR 2213, in maintaining that the employees can no longer be treated as workers or workmen, as defined under section 2(xxviii) of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969. The revision petitioner's standpoint is that the employees may have recourse to any other forum,. or agitate their cause at any other platform, as the forum of the Labour Court is not available to them for redress of their grievances. The learned lower Court has found itself disinclined to accept this view‑point. It is observed that the provisions of Standing Order 12(3) of the West, Pakistan Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968 provide that a workman aggrieved by termination of his services, in any form, may invoke the provisions of section 25‑A of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969.

3. One indeed fails to follow what would be the remedy available to an employee, who has been removed from service, by way of retrenchment, discharge, termination or dismissal, if the forum of the Labour Court or Labour Appellate Tribunal remains no longer available to him. Special statutes were enacted and the Labour Courts were created in order only to provide a remedy to the aggrieved employees, who fell prey to excesses of the employers. Extreme penalty, an employer can inflict, would be the one which aims at ouster of an employee from service. During service, his grievance, if any, would be of trivial nature. It would tantamount to denying substantial justice to the working class, if such narrow and technical construction is put on the provisions and workers are enabled to seek relief only in respect of complaints, hardships and grievances of interim or ordinary nature, by having recourse to Labour Courts. Would not it be an industrial dispute, if differences between an employer and an employee culminate in absolute elimination of the employee from the very rolls of the establishment, reason may be any?

4. If services of an employee are terminated, in breach of clause (3) of Standing Order 12, and if, as defined in section 2(i) of the West Pakistan Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968, he can claim to be a workman, even though he does not fall within the ambit of the definition of worker or workman, covered by clause (xxviii) of section 2 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969, he will eminently 1A attract the provisions of the Labour Laws. Quantum of salary apart, if an employee does manual or clerical work and is not engaged in any managerial or executive or supervisory duty, he is to be treated as a workman, and would be entitled, by all means, to knock at the doors of the Labour Court, moreso, when the very means of his livelihood have been taken away, by reason of termination of his services. s

5. I would endorse the view‑point of the learned Labour Court; and I do not find myself persuaded at all to agree with the view pleaded and canvassed by the employer, in this case. Finding the revision petitions to be devoid of merit, I would dismiss the same, with a direction that the grievance petitions be decided on merits at an early date. A.A./854/Lb.P Case remanded