' JUSTICE (R.) ABDUL HAFEEZ CHEEMA, (CHAIRMAN).---The facts and law points in all the above captioned ( 81) appeals are almost identical, therefore, they are being disposed of by this consolidated single judgment.
2. The respondents/employees had been appointed as work charged/daily wagers from time to time and their services range from two to five and a half years. They had filed grievance petitions before the Punjab Labour Court No,9, Multan with the claim that they had rendered services under the department regularly without any break or blemish. They have been doing manual work as such they come within the ambit of "workmen" according to the Labour Laws and therefore have every right to invoke the jurisdiction of the Labour Court. It was further added that they had attained the status of permanent workmen as provided in the Schedule of Standing Order 1(1) (b) of the Standing Orders Ordinance, 1968 as such they are entitled to regularization. The appellant department has been avoiding regularization of their services on one pretext or the other which compelled them to seek remedy from the Labour Court. The petitions were resisted by the appellant department on various grounds, inter alia, that they are work charged employees and under the rules of the department they cannot claim regularization; they were hired for a specific project and on the expiry of the said project they would cease to remain employee of the MDA and number of similar objections.
3. The learned Labour Court after hearing arguments from both sides passed the impugned judgments dated 27-3-2009 and 8-4-2009 holding that the employees have become permanent and in view of the length of service they are surely entitled to be regularized from the date of passing the judgment without back benefits. However it was ordered that they will be entitled to seniority, annual increments, fixation and re-fixation of pay.
4. The major and substantial point on the part of the appellant department was that there is no concept of regularization of daily wagers or work charged employee. They were recruited for a specific project and at the end of the said project they had to be relieved of their duties. They therefore cannot be said to have been appointed but their services were hired for a given time and there existed no permanent posts for them. As for, their service record being blotless and without blemish, it was asserted that there is no such question involved as no ACRs were ever written in this respect. It was also argued that the impugned judgement of the Labour Court was not a speaking order; that section 35 of the Punjab Development of Cities Act, 1976 provides no budget for them, therefore, they cannot claim permanence and that MDA (WASA) is not an industry or commercial establishment as such the provisions of the Ordinance, 1968 are not applicable to the employees of the appellant department.
5. On the other hand it was claimed by the learned representative of the respondents/employees that they continued their services for the period indicated against each of the respondent which clearly shows that they were not posted against any project and the posts are continuing since the date of their induction into service, therefore under the provisions of the Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968 they have become permanent employees of the appellant department. It was further pointed out that their may not be any category of daily wagers or work charged employees recognized by the Labour Laws yet when the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan says that a work charged or a daily wager whose services are governed by the Labour Laws and serves for a period as provided by the said law, he attains the status of a permanent workman and that is final and conclusive law.
6. Arguments have been heard and record perused.
7. As regards the plea of the appellant department that the Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968 is not applicable as it cannot be described as an industry, this argument is totally fallacious and baseless in as much as the Hon'ble Supreme Court has very clearly after exhaustive and thorough discussion held that the Ordinance applies to them.
Their lordships of the Hon'ble Supreme Court ruled:-- "The only contention pressed by the learned counsel in support of the above appeals is that the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) is neither an industry nor a commercial establishment and as such the provisions of West Pakistan Industrial and Commercial Employment Standing Orders Ordinance, 1968 did not apply to it. It is contended by the learned counsel for the appellants that the functions performed by the LDA are soverign/regal functions and therefore, LDA cannot be termed as an industry so as to give rise to the rights claimed by the respondents."
' This issue was ultimately answered by the Hon'ble Supreme in para No,5 wherein it was held:-- "In view of the above stated legal position, we are of the view that the conclusion reached by the learned Single Judge in the above cases that the appellants fall within the meaning of an 'industry' is not open to any exception. No other point was raised. No case for interference with the judgement of the High Court is made out. The appeals are, accordingly dismissed. However, as majority of respondents has not appeared and defended the case, there will be no order as to costs." (PLD 2000 SC 207).
8. Now this is absolutely clear that LDA, or for that matter MDA is an "industry" and the provisions of the Standing Orders Ordinance, 1968 are undoubtedly applicable to its employees. The Ordinance, 1968 spells out various classes of workmen as under:-- ' Classification of workmen (a workman shall be classified):--
(1) Permanent.
(2) Probationers;
(3) Badlis;
(4) Temporary;
(5) Apprentices.
(b) A 'permanent workman' is a workman who has been engaged on work of permanent nature likely to last more than nine months and has satisfactorily completed a probationary period of three months in the same or another occupation in the industrial or commercial establishment including breaks due to sickness, accident, leave, lock out strike (Not being an illegal lock out or strike) or involuntary closure of the establishment (and includes a badli who has been employed for a continuous period of three months or for one hundred and eighty three days during any period of twelve consecutive months)".
9. All these employees fulfill the standard laid down by the aforesaid provisions of law and they have therefore, become permanent workmen. This is not the only case which has dealt with this proposition. In Executive Engineer Central Civil Division Pak PWD Quetta v. Abdul Aziz and others (PLD 1996 SC 610) an identical proposition arose wherein it was claimed that the employees of Pak PWD were exempt from the application of the Standing Orders Ordinance, 1968. Their lordships held:-- "28. The work of construction or maintenance of buildings, which is performed by the respondents, does not have nexus with the sovereign functions of the State, and therefore, they cannot be described as persons employed in the administration of the State. The above work can be carried out through contractors. The respondents have nothing to do with the running of the government they may be said to be contributing towards facilitating the functioning of the Government. I am therefore, of the view that the respondents are not employed in the administration of the State and hence the clause (b) of subsection (3) of section 1 of the IRO is not attracted to it."
10. I am afraid that the appellants are not fair to their own department when they unnecessarily continued to put up a defence which is against their own policy and in all fairness they should have conceded to the claim of the respondents / employees and should have themselves accorded them the relief as in a number of cases the Hon'ble Supreme Court has ordered their regularization.
In Hameed Akhtar Niazi's case (1996 SCM R 1185), it was ruled by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan that the dictates and rules of good governance demand that benefit of such judgment by Service Tribunal/Supreme Court be extended to other civil servants who may not be parties to the litigation instead of compelling them to approach the Services Tribunal or any other forum. If the Service Tribunal or the Supreme Court decides a point of law relating to the terms and conditions of civil servants which covers not only the case of a civil servant who litigated but also of other civil servants. In the same analogy, if a law point decided by the Hon'ble Supreme Court or the Tribunal covers the case of a particular class of labour employees under the Labour Laws, the rules enunciated in the above judgment requires the competent authority to automatically give relief to the similar placed workmen and not to compel them to have a recourse to the long litigation. The respondent employees have placed on the Office Order No,395 /ADMN/WASA dated 21-9-2001 whereby Director Admin and Finance WASA (MDA) Multan issued an order wherein it was stated that in compliance with the orders of the Punjab Labour. Court No,9 Multan dated 31-1-1994 and as upheld by the Supreme Court of Pakistan through CP Nos.2392-L of 2001 to 2403-L of 2001 dated 23- 7-2001, following work charged employees are hereby regularized since the date of their work charged appointments in the relevant pay scales. This order contains the names of 48 work charged employees of the category of Chowkidar, Helper/Operator, Baildar, Mali, Security Guard, Gate Keepers, Plumbers and Mates.
11. When this has been done by the MDA, WSA itself, now it does not lie in their mouth to blow hot and cold in the same breath. There is yet another document titled as "Minutes 39th Meeting of the Governing Body of MDA held on 27 March, 2002 at 1100 Hours in the Conference Room of MDA. At the end of this document which is placed on the record 235 daily wagers were also regularized. The matter does not end here. The respondents/employees produced on the record another letter No,2862/ADMN/WASA dated 28-10-2002. The subject of this letter was " Regularization of work charged / daily wages employees". This order was issued by the Managing Director, WASA (MDA)
Multan which inter alia states that 235 work charged and daily wages employees of WASA were approved for regularization and so also this approval was accorded in 39th Meeting of the MDA.
Surprisingly, another letter No,74/Admn dated 10-1-2003 has been presented on the record on the same subject which inter alia states that the Authority considered the item and decided as follows:--
(i) The house approved the proposal.
(ii) "235 - Daily Wages and Work Charged employees were also on the agenda of the table item submitted in the meeting. They were also regularized".
12. The learned representative of the respondents/employees presented numerous judgments of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan in support of their claim.
13. In this view of the matter the appeals filed by the appellant Department (WASA, MDA) are hereby dismissed and the order passed by the learned Labour Court No,9 Multan is upheld.
14. As regards the appeals filed by the employees/respondents claiming back benefits it may be noted that there was no budgetary sanction in respect of these posts which had also been considered temporary in the local Government circle and now they have been accorded this right in view of the provisions of the Standing orders Ordinance, 1968 which has been approved by the Hon'ble Supreme court of Pakistan in a number of cases. They should therefore, feel content about the relief which has been provided to them. No sufficient cause has been shown by them for the grant of back benefits.
15. There appears to be no defect, flaw or infirmity in the impugned order regarding disallowing back benefits to the espondents.Consequently, their appeals too are equally dismissed.