' These are 2 appeals by workmen against identical decisions by the learned 1st Labour Court, given on 16th December 1979. Dismissing their grievance applications challenging the orders of their dismissal from service.
2. The appellants, who were employed as weavers in his respondent establishment, filed grievance applications before the learned 1st Labour Court claiming that the respondent establishment did not allow its workmen the various benefits permitted to them under the law, and when it was pressed for the grant of these benefits, it locked out all the workers on 26th July, 1977, without any notice in writing, whereupon the workers approached the Martial Law Authorities and the Labour Directorate for redress, but as their grievance was not redressed, they approached the Labour Court under section 25-A, Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969. The learned Labour Court dismissed the grievance applications of the 2 appellants on the grounds, firstly, that the said applications were not maintainable as the Standing Orders were not applicable to the respondent establishment, which was employing less than 19 workmen, secondly, that both the applicants had voluntarily resigned from the service of the respondent establishment, as established from their resignation applications and acceptance of resignations, both of which admittedly bear their thumb impressions and signatures, and finally, that the appellants had failed to establish that they bad served the required grievance notices upon the respondent establishment.
3. I have heard Mr. Ali Ahmad, the learned counsel for the appellants. He submitted that since the Payment and Attendance Registers of the workmen were with the respondent establishment, it was its duty to produce the same in support of its contention that it was employing less than 19 workmen, and since it had failed to do so. It should be inferred that the said documents did not support its contentions and the establishment in fact was employing more than 19 persons. It may be pointed out, that there is only the bare statement of the appellants that the respondent establishment was employing more than 19 workmen. Neither the names of such workmen have been given by them nor any of them were examined. On the other hand, the respondent establishment all along has denied that it had ever employed more than 19 persons. If the appellants wanted to rely upon the Payment of Attendance Registers in support of their contentions that more than 19 persons were employed in the respondent establishment during The relevant period, they could easily have required the respondent establishment to produce the registers. This they failed to do. It was pointed out by this Tribunal in the case of Mohammad Ilyas v.
Madina Woollen Mills, Karachi, decided on 28th October 1979, that I has been repeatedly held by this Tribunal that where it is denied by an establishment that it is employing more than 19 workmen, the burden of Establishing that this assertion is incorrect and that in fact the establishment is employing 20 or more workmen is upon the workman or the person who makes such a claim.
4. The second ground on which the learned Labourt Court has dismissed the grievance applications of the appellants also appears to be a valid one. It has been admitted by both the appellants that not only their resignation applications but also the acceptance of the said applications by the Management bear their thumb-impressions and signatures. Their contention, however, is that their thumb-impressions and signatures were taken on blank pieces of papers.
There is, however no iota of evidence in support of this contention. It is difficult to believe that a person who can sign, will affix his signatures on blank pieces of paper. Furthermore, the thumb impressions and signatures on the resignation applications are immediately at the foot of the resignations, clearly indicating that they were affixed after the resignation applications were written out, I, therefore, find no substance in the contention of the appellants that the resignations were subsequently written by or at the instance of the respondent establishment on the blank pieces of papers on which their signatures and thumb impressions had previously been taken.
5. Mr. Ali .Ahmad also failed to convince me that the appellants have served the required grievance notices upon the respondent establishment. All that he was able to refer to in support of his contention were copies of the grievance notices said to have been served by the appellants on the respondent-establishment. These grievance notices, according to him, were delivered to one Abdul Ghaffar, an employee of the respondent establishment, on behalf of the employer. In the first place it is not established that the 2 notices were in fact delivered to Abdul Ghaffar since Abdul Ghaffar has not been examined. Furthermore, receipt of the notices by an employee, assuming that Abdul Ghaffar in fact received the notices, is not service upon the employer. It may also be pointed out that according to Akhtar son of Ibrahim, a partner in the respondent establishment, one Abdul Ohaffar who was an employee of the B respondent establishment had left their services long before the date on which the grievance notices are said to have been sent to the respondent establishment.
6. In view of all the above circumstances, I find no infirmity in the impugned orders of the learned Labour Court. I would accordingly dismiss these 2 appeals in limine.