Judgment: Through the instant intra Court appeal the appellants, Zulfiqar Ali, etc., impugn the judgment dated 08.02.2022 passed by the learned Judge-in Chambers, whereby writ petition No.2236/2021 filed by the appellants, was dismissed. Through the said writ petition, the appellants had sought a direction to Pakistan International Airlines Corporation ("P.I.A.C.") to issue fresh appointment letters to the appellants showing them as regular employees of P.I.A.C. with effect from the date when the services of similarly placed employees were regularized pursuant to the judgment of the Hon'ble Lahore High Court reported as 2001 PLC (CS) 41.
2. Learned counsel for the appellants submitted that the appellants were employed as Passenger Services Assistants by P.I.A.C. through service providers / third party contractors on daily wages basis from 1990 to 1997; that the appellants' salaries were much less than the regularly appointed Passenger Services Assistants; that a number of employees appointed as Passenger Services Assistants in P.I.A.C. through service providers had filed writ petition No.879/1999 before the Hon'ble Lahore High Court which allowed the said petition with the direction to P.I.A.C. to consider the petitioners in the said writ petition for the regularization of their services; that initially the appellants were made contract employees and subsequently in the year 2008 the appellants' services were regularized; that P.I.A.C.'s letters whereby the appellants were regularized were with prospective effect; that it was the vested right of the appellants for their services to have been regularized with effect from the date after a lapse of 183 days from the date when they were appointed on daily wages basis; that P.I.A.C.'s decision not to regularize the appellants' services with effect from the said date violates P.I.A.C.'s service rules; and that the learned Judge-in-Chambers erred by dismissing the appellants' writ petition.
3. We have heard the contentions of the learned counsel for the appellants.
4. It is not disputed that presently the appellants have the status of permanent / regular employees of P.I.A.C. The appellants' grievance is that when their contractual services were regularized in the years 2007 and 2008, it was with prospective effect. They seek for the regularization of their services with effect from the date 183 days after they were appointed on daily wages basis. The appellants, being regular employees of P.I.A.C., have agitated a matter pertaining to the terms and conditions of their service. In the case of PIA Corporation Vs. Syed Suleman Alam Rizvi (2015 SCMR 1545), this Court has held that the employment in Pakistan International Airlines, being not governed by statutory rules, principle of 'Master and Servant' would apply and thus, the writ petition before the High Court would not be maintainable. Similar view was also taken by this Court in the case of Pakistan International Airline Corporation and others Vs. Tanweer-ur- Rehman (PLD 2010 SC 676). Law to the said effect has also been laid down in the cases of Fouzia Khan Vs. Chairman / CEO PIA (2020 PLC (CS) 1078) and Sher Muhammad Zafar Vs. Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (2019 PLC (CS) 907). Since the terms and conditions of the appellants' employment with P.I.A.C. were not governed by any statutory service rules, the writ petition filed by them was not maintainable.
5. An added reason why the writ petition filed by the appellants had to be dismissed was that the appellants' appointment letters whereby their services were regularized were issued in the years 2007 and 2008 whereas the writ petition was filed by them in the year 2021 i.e., with the delay of more than a decade. Learned counsel for the appellants did not come up with any plausible explanation for the inordinate delay in filing the writ petition.
6. In view of the above, we do not find any merit in the instant appeal, which is accordingly dismissed in lim ine.