' Muzaffar Hassan Qadri has filed an appeal under section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunals Act, 1974 with the grievance that although he had a continuous service in the Municipal Committee, Shujabad, as a teacher since 1951 but the Department has denied to him this benefit on the plea that he was taken into service of the Government from 4th June, 1960 as a new entrant due to the transfer of the school to the Government.
2. I have heard the learned counsel for the appellant at length as well as the appellant who is present before me. While going into the history of this case I find that whet the appellant received information that he was not going to be given the benefit of this continuous service from 1951 he challenged the same before the Civil Court. The Administrative Judge, Multan vide his order dated 27th April, 1974 consigned the case to record as abated, the reason being that as the Service Tribunal had come in the field so the forum for the appellant was there. According to the appellant he went to the Service Tribunal through a lawyer but as ill luck would have it the lawyer became ill and his appeal could not be filed. After about six months or so when there was no response from the Tribunal he apprehended that his case was either disposed of in his absence or the lawyer had not filed the appeal. He contacted the lawyer at Lahore and was informed that due to illness of the lawyer the appeal could not be filed.
3. In the light of the above what I find is that there is nothing on the record to show that any other appeal was filed before the Tribunal. So the present appeal would be time-barred at least by seven years, although the appellant has got a good prima facie case on merits but there is no justification with this Tribunal to condone a period of seven years of delay as there are no cogent reasons to do so. The result is that the appeal is dismissed in limine.