Through this single judgment I. intend to dispose of this petition (W.P. No, 17015/2011, titled Chief Executive MEPCO etc. v. Muhammad Saleem Khan etc.) as well as connected petition (W.P. No, 17016/2011, titled Chief Executive MEPCO etc. v. Haji Khadim Hussain etc.), having commonality of law and facts inasmuch in both these petitions the petitioners have assailed the vires of judgments & decrees, dated 03.11.2010 and 26.7.2011, passed by the learned Presiding Officer Punjab Labour Court No, 9, Multan (Respondent No, 2) and the Punjab Labour Appellate Tribunal (Respondent No, 3), respectively.
2. Shorn of unnecessary details, the facts, necessary for the disposal of these petitions, are that the private respondents in these petitions filed Grievance Petitions in terms of Section 46 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 2002, for grant of selection Grade BS-15 which were accepted by Respondent No, 2, vide judgment dated 3.11.2010, against which petitioners-MEPCO filed appeals before Respondent No, 3 which were dismissed through judgment, dated 26.07.2011; hence these petitions.
3. Learned counsel for the petitioners-MEPCO submits that from the very inception the stance of the petitioners-MEPCO was that the Grievance Petitions filed by the private respondents were time barred; that as the question involved in the Grievance Petitions could not be decided without recording of evidence the judgments passed by Respondents No, 2 does not carry any weight and that the Grievance Petitions filed by the private respondents were accepted by Respondent No, 2 mainly for the reason that grant of selection grade being recurring cause of action, the Grievance Petitions were not barred by the law of limitation.
4. Conversely, Syed Riaz-ul-Hassan Gillani Advocate for Respondent No, 1 in connected petition, submits that the matter was decided by Respondent No, 2 after recording evidence of the parties, therefore, plea raised by learned counsel for the petitioners that the matter was decided without recording evidence of the parties does not arise; that conduct of the petitioners-MEPCO is manifest from the fact that the appeals filed before Respondent No, 3 against verdict of Respondent No, 2 were hopelessly time barred; that the Constitutional jurisdiction of this Court, being limited in nature, cannot be exercised to upset the concurrent findings of facts recorded by the fora below; that the petitioners MEPCO opted not to produce any evidence during the pendency of proceedings before Respondent No, 2, therefore, at this stage they have no cheeks to assert that the matter was decided without recording evidence of the parties; that the judgments, almost on all fours, referred in the decisions of Respondent No, 2, having attained finality has binding force. In addition to his oral submissions, learned counsel has relied upon a decision rendered by the Supreme Court of India in the case of K.V.S. Ram v. Bangalore metropolitan Transport Corpn (Civil Appeal No, 412 of 2015).
5. Mr. Muhammad Iqbal Shakir Ansari Advocate representing Respondent No, 1 in this petition instead of addressing the Court independently has toed the line of learned counsel representing Respondent No, 1 in connected petition.
6. I have heard learned counsel for the parties at considerable length and have also gone through the documents annexed with this petition in addition to the case law cited at the bar.
7. Admittedly, the appeals filed by the petitioners-MEPCO against the decisions of Respondent No, 2 were barred by law of limitation. While submitting applications for condonation of delay, the petitioners-MEPCO took the plea that as the counsel representing them before Respondent No, 2 died during pendency of the proceedings, the department could not have the knowledge about acceptance of the Grievance Petitions filed by the private respondents, therefore, the appeals could not be filed within time. The said assertion of the petitioners-MEPCO stands nullified from the contents of Paragraph No, 6 of the judgment passed by Respondent No, 2 which reads as under: "6. I have heard Mr. Ashfaq Ahmad Khan representative of the petitioner, Sh. Ishfaq Nadeem advocate learned counsel for the respondents and perused the record very carefully."
The afore-quoted paragraph leaves no ambiguity that at the time of decision of the Grievance Petitions filed by the private Respondents the petitioners-department was duly represented by its Counsel, thus, the reasons advanced by the petitioners-MEPCO in the applications for condonation of delay, filed alongwith the appeals before Respondent No, 3, were not justified. It is well established by low that when the proceedings are filed beyond the prescribed period if limitation each day's delay is to be explained by the party concerned ind in the event of his failure to do so the matter deserves outright dismissal. Reliance in this regard can safely be placed on the cases Reported as Raja Khan v. Manager (Operation)Faisalabad Electricity Supply Company (WAPDA) and others (2011 SCM R 676) and Govt. of the Pakistan through Ministry of Works and another v. M/s Malbrow Builders, Contractor, Sialkot (2006 SCM R 1248).
8. Now coming to contention of learned counsel for the practitioners-MEPCO that as the Grievance Petitions filed by the private respondents were hopelessly time barred the same could not have been accepted by Respondent No,
2. In this regard, I am of the view that when the petitioners- MEPCO opted not to produce even an iota of evidence in this regard, how the mere assertion in that regard could be considered by Respondent No,
2. Even otherwise, Respondent Jo. 2, while dealing with the said question has given cogent reasons which are unexceptionable. It is not case of the petitioners-MEPCO that the judgment, dated 10.01.2009 rendered by Respondent No, 2 was ever set aside by the higher forum. In this scenario, the reliance ) paced by Respondent No, 2 on the said judgment cannot be declared as illegal.
9. Further, the law favours the vigilant and not the indolent as held by the apex Court of the country in the case reported as Rehmat Din vs. Mirza Nasir Abbas (2007 SCM R 1560) and the rights accrued in favour of an individual on the basis of a verdict cannot be allowed to be withdrawn in proceedings which otherwise were not instituted within the prescribed period of limitation.
10. Further, concurrent findings recorded by the for a below cannot be upset in Constitutional jurisdiction until and unless they are proved to be perverse or result of arbitrariness which is not the position in these petitions. Reliance in this regard can safely be placed in the case of Farhat Jabeen v. Muhammad Safdar and others (2011 SCM R 1073).
11.For what has been discussed above, both these petitions are hereby dismissed.