' NAIMUDDIN, J.-By this petition under Article 199 of the Constitution, the petitioner, who has been retired from service after 25 years of service, has challenged the order of retirement dated 25th August, 1971, mainly on the ground that the petitioner is not a civil servant and as such the provisions of Civil Servant Act, 1973 under which he has been retired, are not applicable to him.
2. The petitioner at the time of passing of the retirement order was working as Head Sorter in R. M. S. In the National Pay Scale 11 and was drawing Rs, 766 per month as total emoluments in the said National Scale of Pay.
3. It may be convenient, if we may reproduce the order of retirement which reads as follows : "Office of the Postmaster General, Southern Circle." Memo. No, SR-92/25 Yrs (K W)/DSRM dated at Karachi the 10th April, 1980.
Whereas Mr. Z. A. Wasti, Head Sorter, Office of the Divisional Superintendent Stg. And Air Dn, Karachi has completed 25 years of service qualifying for pension or other retirement benefits.
' Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (ii) of section 13 of the Civil Servants Act, 1973 (LXXI of 1973), the competent authority is pleased to direct in the public interest that Mr. Z.
A. Wasti shall retire from service with immediate effect, or, if any leave preparatory to retirement is applied for by him within 10 days of the date of this Memo. And granted to him, on the expiry of such leave.
(Sd.) P. A. QURESHI, ' Postmaster General."
4. At the very out set we asked the learned counsel for the petitioner to satisfy us that this petition has not abated in view of the provisions of Article 13 of the Provisional Constitutional Order, 1981, (hereinafter for the sake of convenience called 'the Order'), which reads as follows :-
13. Area of Jurisdiction in Respect of Order of Retirement of Civil Servant :-
(1) Where a person in the service of Pakistan has been or is retired from service under the orders of the competent authority after he has completed 25 years of service qualifying for pension or other retirement benefits, no Court or Tribunal, including the Supreme Court, a High Court and a Service Tribunal, shall have any jurisdiction to entertain any proceedings calling in question the validity of the orders of the competent authority on any ground whatsoever and any such proceedings pending before any such Court or Tribunal immediately before the commencement of this Order shall abate forthwith.
(2) Any person in respect of whom an order . Such' as is referred to in clause (1) has been or is made may, within 30 days from the commencement of this Order or the date of the making of the order, whichever is later, apply to the competent authority for a review of the order." "(b) "civil servant" means a person who is a member of an All-Pakistan Service or of a civil service of the Federation, or who holds a civil post in connection with the affairs of the Federation, including any such post connected with defence, but does not include follows :-
(I) a person who is on deputation to the Federation from any Province or other authority ;
(id) a person who is employed on contract, or on work-charged basis, or who is paid from contingencies; or
(iii) a person who is a "worker" or a "workman" as defined in the Factories Act, 1934 (XXV of 1934), or the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923 (VIII of 1923)."
5. He further submitted that the provisions of Article 13 of the Order are not attracted to the case of the petitioner as the order of retirement was not competently passed.
6. Now, taking up the first submission that provisions of Article 13 of the Order, do not apply to the petitioner as he is not a "civil servant", it may be stated that the Article speaks of a person in the 'service of Pakistan' and not a civil servant. The service of Pakistan has been defined in Article 260 of the Constitution, which reads as follows : "Service of Pakistan" means any service, post or office in connection with the affairs of the Federation or of a Province, and The learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the Article 13 of the Order, as the heading shows applies to civil servants and not to the petitioner who claims to be a 'workman' not coming within the mischief of the definition of 'civil servant' as given in section 2, subsection (1), clause (b) of the Civil Servants Act, 1973, which reads as includes an All-Pakistan Service, service in the Armed Forces and any other service declared to be a service of Pakistan by or under Act of Parliament or of a Provincial Assembly, but does not include service as Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Chairman, Deputy Chairman, Prime Minister, Federal Minister, Minister of State, Chief Minister, Provincial Minister, Attorney-General, Advocate-General, Parliamentary Secretary or Chairman, or member of a Law Commission, Chairman or member of the Council of Islamic Ideology, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister, Adviser to the Prime Minister, Special Assistant to Chief Minister, Adviser to a Chief Minister, or member of a House or a Provincial Assembly."
' It will be seen that this definition is very wide to include all persons who are in any service, post, or office in connection with the affairs of the Federation or of the Province including an all Pakistan service, service in the Armed Forces, and any other service declared to be a service of Pakistan by or under the Act of Parliament or of a Provincial Assembly but does not include those offices specified in the definition.
8. However, it was argued by Mr. Manzoor All Khan that the heading of Article 13 of the Order indicates that the same was intended to apply to the cases of civil servants who have been retired from service after 25 years of service and who have challenged such order of retirement.
9. It is well settled that the heading in the body of an Act cannot control the provisions of the section when they are clear, unambiguous and unequivocal. The heading could be of some help only in clearing up obscurities when there is an ambiguity. We may here refer to the following observations of Sulaiman, Actg. C. J., in a Full Bench case of Allahabad High Court in Durga Thathera v. Narain Thathera and another (1) which appear at page 599 of the report : "No doubt headings in the body of an Act are of some help in clearing up obsecurities when there is an ambiguity, but they cannot control the provisions of the sections when they are unequivocal and clear. The headings are like preambles which supply a key to the mind of the legislature, but do not control the substantive sections of the enactment."
However, we may state that the rules of Interpretation of Statutes' also apply to interpretation of constitutional documents.
10. We may also here quote a passage from "Maxwell on The Interpretation of Statutes," 12th Edition, which appears at page 11 ; "Headings-The headings prefixed to sections or sets of sections in some modern statutes are regarded as preambles to those sections. (This statement was approved by Farwell L. J., in Fletcher v. Birkenhead Corporation (1907) 1 K. B. 205). They cannot controlthe plain words of the statute, (Re Lord Penryhn's Settlement Trusts (1923) 1 Ch. 143, per P.
0. Lawrence, J.) but they may explain ambiguous words (Union S. S. Co. Of New Zealand, Ltd. v.
Melbourne Harbour Trust Commissioners (1884) 9 App. Cas. 365; Inglis v. Robertson (1898) A. C. 616; Martins v. Fowler (1926) A. C. 746)."
' It would also be advantageous, if we refer to a passage from Craies
(1) AIR 1931 All. 597 ' _on Statute Law, 6th Edition page 209, which reads as follows : "Headings do not affect construction where clear. But the same general rule which regulates the effect of the preamble applies also to these headings-namely, that they are not to be taken into consideration if the language of the enactment is clear. (R. V. Bates and Russell cited in note 33 on p. 194, ante, For an article on headings see (1960) 124 J. P. J. 247). To this Lord Goddard, C. J. Said (R. v. Surray (N. E.
Area) Assessm ent Committee (1948)
1. K. B. 28 at p. 32), with reference to cross-headings in the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925: "But while the Court is entitled to look at the headings in an Act of Parliament to resolve any doubt they may have as to ambiguous words, the law is quite clear that you cannot use such headings to give a different effect to clear words of the section where there cannot be any doubt as to their ordinary meaning. The leading authority is Hammersmith & City Ry. v. Brand (see. p. 207 ante.) and the matter has been more recently considered in Fletcher v.
Birkenhead Corn.
It is worth pointing out that the order has been passed on the assumption that the petitioner was a civil servant and on that basis we are of the opinion that the provisions of Article 13 of the Order would squarely c apply, but assuming that the petitioner is not a civil servant, still the provision of Article 13 of the order would apply for they apply to all persons in the Service of Pakistan as defined in Article 260 of the Constitution.
11. However, Mr. Manzoor Ali Khan submitted that the intention of the framer of the Order, which is manifest from heading of Article 13 that it was intended to apply to civil servants, should be taken into consideration.
12. In support of his submission he referred to 'In the matter of reference by the President of Pakistan under Article 162 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (1956) PLD 1957 S. C. (Pak.)
219). Wherein the rules for construction of statute and constitution have been set out by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He particularly referred to the following rules "(1) In the interpretation of written insruments, whether they are constitutional charters or ordinary statutes or other documents, the first object of the Court is to discover the intention of the author and such intention is to be gathered from the words used in the statute or document.
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6) Effect should be given to every part and every word of the Constitution. Hence, as a general rule, the Courts should avoid a construction which renders any provision meaningless or inoperative and must lean in favour of a construction which will render every word operative rather than one which may make some words idle and nugatory.
' Reliance was placed for this rule on 11 Am. Jar., Constitutional Law, Art. 55.
(7) It is the duty of the Courts to have recourse to the whole instrument, if necessary, to ascertain the true intent and meaning of any particular provision.
' Reliance was placed for this rule on 11 Am. Jur., Constitutional Law Art. 53.
The learned counsel for the petitioner has also referred to a decision of a Division Bench of Peshawar High Court in Gul Muhammad ' Khan and another v. Dilawar Khan and others (1) and particularly referred the following passage appearing at page 80 of the report.
"In such a case, it is very difficult for us to conceive as to how can it be said that although the legislature passed into law the preamble, side or the marginal notes of a certain section, or the headlines attached thereto, as much as it passed the other provisions of law, yet it did not want them to be treated on the same footing as the rest of the law and in fact wanted them to be looked at only in the case of necessity, for example when the language of the section is obscure and ambiguous. If, on the other hand, the preamble, the marginal or the side-note, or the head-note was not passed by the legislature but was added later on, then they obviously cannot have any legal significance whatsoever, and should be completely ignored.'
' He also relied on the following passage appearing in Sarfraz Khan v. The Crown (2) at p. 397 : "I think it has been truly said that when we interpret a constitution, we do not confine ourselves to its wording, as we do in the case of a mere statute, but also take notice of its history and spirit."
' Reliance was also placed on M. A. Khuhro v. The Federation of Pakistan, Etc. (3) In this case he referred to the following passage.
"(g) Interpretation of Statutes.-Interpretation should be in light of words and favour of existing rights. No word to be considered as superfluous or redundant.
' The statute has to be interpreted in the light of the words used in it, and in the case two different interpretations are possible, the one that does not take away the existing rights is to be preferred.
' One of the rules of interpretation of statute is that every word used in the statute is intended to have some effect and be of some use and no word is to be considered as superfluous or redundant."
13. Now, so far as the language used in Article 13 of the Order, is concerned, it is, in our opinion, clear and unambiguous. If the law giver had intended to apply these provisions to Civil Servants as defined in the Civil Servants Act, 1973, only he could have very well used the expression "civil servant." One of the cardinal rules for construction is that a Court that has to construe an Act of a legislature, or indeed any other document, has to determine the intention as expressed by the words. Further, we may here state the rule declared by the Judges in advising the House of Lords in the Sussex Peerage Claim (4) and accepted by the Judicial Committee in Cargo ex Argos (5), Tasmania v. Common {{FOOT NOTE}}
(1) p L D 1955 Pesh. 76 (2) PLD 1950 Lab. 384
(3) PLD 1950 Sind 49
(4) 1944 II Cl. & F 85, 143; 6 St. Tr. (N. S.) 79
(5) 1873 L R 5 P. C. 134, 153 Cf. {{FOOT NOTE}} ' wealth (I) quoted by Craies on Statute Law, 6th Edition page, 66, "if the words of the statute are themselves precise and unambiguous, then no more can be necessary than to expound those words in their ordinary and natural sense. The words themselves alone do in such a case best declare the intention of the taw giver."
14. The above rule of interpretation is in accord with rule(I) set out by the Supreme Court in the matter of Reference by the President of Pakistan under Article 162 of the Constitution (Supra). We have already stated the role assigned to the heading of the section in interpreting the section, and therefore, it is not necessary to discuss the cases cited and the passages referred to by the learned counsel for the petitioner in great detail and it would suffice to say that by interpreting the section as we have done no word in the section is made meaningless, inoperative, superfluous or redundant. So far as the heading is concerned we have already discussed it.
15. Now, examined in the light of the above rule we find that not only the words used in Article 13 of the Order, are clear and unambiguous but also the intention of the law giver is also clear, for, alongwith the jurisdiction of the Services Tribunal, which deals with matters of civil servants, the jurisdiction of other Tribunals and Courts including the Supreme Court and High Court is barred. We may add that if the intention was to declare, the abatement of the cases of civil servant only then in Article 13 of the Order same expression would have been used instead of using the words 'a person in the service of Pakistan. When a word or expression is used in an enactment or in constitution or in constitutional documents and it is also defined in the enactment or constitution then unless there is a clear expression of intention to the contrary it would be deemed to have been used in the meaning as defined in the enactment or constitution.
16. As regards the further submission that the order has not been passed competently as the petitioner being a workman and not a civil servant could not have been retired under section 13 of the Civil Servants Act, 1973 as in the order itself it is mentioned that he was being retired under the exercise of powers conferred under section 13 (2) of the Civil Servants Act, 1973, which reads as follows : "13. Retirement from Service.-A Civil servant shall retire from service-in any other case, on such date after he has completed twenty-five years of service qualifying for pension or other retirement benefits as the competent authority may, in the public interest, direct ; or."
' However, it is not denied or disputed that the petitioner was retired by competent authority whether he .Was a civil servant or a workman. {{FOOT NOTE}}
(1) (1904) 1 C L R 329 {{FOOT NOTE}} According to the provisions of Article 13 of the Order, this Court has no jurisdiction to entertain any proceedings calling in question the validity of the order of the competent authority on any ground, whatsoever. Therefore, this submission also fails.
16. Accordingly we hold that this petition has abated.