' 210 employees filed applications for payment under Employees' Cost of Living (Relief) Act, 1973, before the Authority under the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, for the period from 1st August, 1973 to 15th April 1977. Applications were accepted on 31st July 1977. The petitioner-Corporation filed an appeal before the Punjab Labour Court No, 7, Gujranwala, which was partly allowed to the extent that the relief granted was maintained for three years prior to the applications and was declined for the period earlier thereto. This is vide order dated 10th June, 1978. The petitioner-Corporation challenged the orders by means of revision petition before the Labour Appellate Tribunal but fact that on account of the fact that the learned Appellate Court had earlier held that no revision was competent, the revision was withdrawn on .15th May 198E Through this Constitutional petition, the aforesaid two orders of the Authority and the Labour Court dated 31st July 1977 and 10th June 1978 are challenged.
2. Learned counsel for the petitioner-Corporation has vehemently contended that the respondents were not the workers of the petitioner-Corporation. On the other hand, 11 of them had entered into 'a contract with the petitioner to load and unload, dry and husk rice and paddy and these 11 persons were contractors and the rest were their labour force. There was no privity of contract between the respondents and the petitioner-Corporation and, therefore, the respondents being not employees were not entitled to the benefit of the Employees Cost of Living (Relief) Act, 1973. The learned counsel relied upon PLD 1976 Lah.
1169.
3. Besides' that the judgment relied upon opens with the statement in para. 3 that a finding of fact as to whether a person is an employee or not is not liable to be interfered with in exercise of Constitutional Jurisdiction in view of the various decided cases which would mean that in the present case .When the respondents had been found to be employees of the petitioner by the learned trial Court, i. e. The Authority under the Payment of Wages Act and by the Appellate Court, i. e. The Punjab Labour Court, the finding of fact recorded and confirmed in appeal can hardly be interfered with in exercise of Constitutional jurisdiction, but the evidence on the record referred to by the learned counsel for the petitioner also shows that the finding is well based. P.W.1, the General Secretary stated that the respondents were the members of the Rice Milling Corporation Labour Union registered under the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969 with the Registrar of Trade Unions, Lahore Region, Lahore. This Union had the status of Collective Bargaining Agent in the Organization.
The learned counsel submits that the Corporation had objected to the registration of the Labour Union as C. B. A. However, the fact of registration of the respondents as members of the Labour Union stands in tact and their Union toeing a Collective Bargaining Agent leaves no doubt that the respondents were the employees of the petitioner-Corporation who had organized themselves into a Union and had got recognized their status as the Collective Bargaining Agent. In these circumstances, it is not possible for the petitioner to repudiate their status as its employees. It was also in the evidence of P. W. 2 that respondents were paid wages twice a month on fortnightly basis by the petitioner. Petitioner's own witness P.W. 2 Zafar Sial, Area Manager, stated that "the applicants have been engaged by the respondent for undertaking necessary work in the 10 units organized by the respondent". If the applicant-respondents were engaged by the petitioner for undertaking necessary work, it is obvious that they were the employees of the petitioner. Definition of an employee, as given in the relevant statute, i. e. Employees Cost of Living (Relief) Act, 1973, reads as follows :- "Employee" means any person employed whether directly or through any other person, for wages; to do any skilled or unskilled, intellectual, technical clerical, manual or other work in, or in connection with the affairs of, an undertaking, under any contract of service or apprenticeship, whether written or oral, express implied and includes such a person when laid off, but does not include a person for whom a provision has been, or may be, made by the Federal Government or a Provincial, Government for grant of an allowance intended to provide relief due to a rise in the cost of living."
' From this definition, it is quite clear that respondents were employed for wages to do manual work for the petitioner-Corporation. A reference to the observations made in the judgment quoted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that when worker are employed by a contractor for carrying out a work for another and if there is no private between the latter and the workers engaged by the Contractor, there will be no relationship of employer and employees between the first party and the workers is quite correct, if I may say so with utmost respect, but this is not applicable to the facts of the case and the evidence on record as pointed out above. Here the petitioner- Corporation has engaged the respondents. Though through a Contractor, but they were its employees as they were under its control and supervision and were members of its Labour Union.
The , payments of wages made to the respondents through the Contractor, as pointed out by the learned counsel for the petitioner, does not diminish or detract from the relationship of the respondents as employees of the petitioner because an employer need not necessarily make the payment of wages directly to his employees. It may pay through any of its agents or cashier but that would not mean that the agent or the cashier who hands out the wages becomes the employer of the receiving employees. The relationship is between the employees and the employer, no matter who or through whose hands the payment is made. In view of the evidence on the record the finding of fact recorded by the learned trial Court and confirmed by the appellate Court is not open to question in exercise of Constitutional B jurisdiction in view of the judgment quoted above and numerous other cases. Consequently, this petition has no force and is dismissed in limine.