This writ petition has been filed by an employee of the Government of Pakistan in the Department- of Archaeology at Lahore against the action taken by the respondents qua his service.
2. The brief facts of the case are that the petitioner was employed as a Librarian at the Lahore Fort in the Department of Archaeology, Government of Pakistan. He received a communication dated 14-12-1981 from the Superintendent of Archaeology, Lahore Fort purporting to accept his resignation dated 10-12-1981. He was accordingly directed to handover charge of the Library to the Custodian.
The charge was to be completed before 31-12-1981 and he was to be relieved from duty on 31-12- 1981. This communication was replied to by the petitioner on 23-12-1981. The plea raised by him was that he had not tendered his resignation and that he may be supplied with a photostat copy of the resignation for his study and necessary action. On receipt of this reply the Superintendent Archaeology ordered that a photostat copy of letter of re--signation may be sent by registered post acknowledgement due. It is not clear as to what happened pursuant to this order. However, this is obvious that on 29-12-1981 the petitioner was served with a charge sheet under the Government Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules and was directed to submit his reply by 31- 12-1981, failing which he shall be deemed to have been removed from service. In these circumstances the petitioner has filed this constitutional petition. .
2. The petition has been contested by the Government of Pakistan and the learned Deputy Attorney General has appeared in this case. A written statement has also been filed.
3. The learned Deputy Attorney General has trot sought to defend the impugned action of the respondents but his preliminary objection is to the effect that by virtue of Article 212 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Service Tribunal constituted under, the Service Tribunals Aft has been conferred an exclusive jurisdiction to deal with service matters of the employees. Any party aggrieved has a further right to go up to the Supreme Court for necessary redress.
4. The submission of the learned Deputy Attorney-General is that in the present case the petitioner was required to avail of an appeal or a representation to be made to the higher authorities and in the event of his failure to have filed a further appeal before the Service Tribunal. This according to the learned D. A. G. Is relevant in so far as the question of limitation is concerned. He further submits that notwithstanding any alleged irregularity or illegality in the orders or proceedings which have been attacked before the High Court, the basic questions to which the High Court has to address itself are the bounds of its own jurisdiction within the frame-work of the Constitution. He frankly conceded that he could not justify the issuance of charge-sheet dated 29-12-1981 but supplemented this submission by stating that notwithstanding the misconceived charge-sheet this was a wholly inadequate circumstance to confer jurisdiction on this Court which did not vest in it under the Constitution or statute.
5. On behalf of the petitioner this objection has been replied to bye Mr. M. Aslam Zia, learned counsel for the petitioner, by stating that resignation was not specifically dealt with in the Civil Servants Act or the Service Tribunals Act and thus it was not a matter affecting the terms and conditions of service of a civil servant. According to him therefore, the High Court would have the jurisdiction in the matter.
6. After having given my anxious consideration to the whole matter, I feel that there can be little manner of doubt that a resignation which has the effect of bringing to an end the employment of a person relates to and is concerned with the terms and conditions of employment of a civil servant.
The mere fact that it has not been specifically dealt with by the statute or the rules framed after its enforcement would not suffice because by virtue of section 25 of the Civil Servants Act, all previous rules and instructions have been kept alive subject to their being in conformity with the provisions of the present statute. In order to bring about an inconsistency, it has to be shown that there are provisions in the Act which would not permit the earlier instructions to survive. This is not the position in the present case. I would, therefore, sustain the objection and hold that the petitioner ought to avail of his remedies by invoking the jurisdic--tion of the Service Tribunal and the jurisdiction of the High Court in such like matters where the jurisdiction of the Tribunal was in existence would be clearly barred by virtue of Article 212 of the Constitution of the Islami Republic of Pakistan. In this view of the matter, I am not called upon to comment on the merits of the case lest anybody's case is prejudiced.
7. Learned counsel for the petitioner at this stage expressed the apprehension that he may be met with a plea of limitation if he were to approach the Service Tribunal. The apprehension is not well- founded because in such like cases the provisions of section 14 of the Limitation Act c are designed to take care of situation. The writ petition, therefore, fails and is hereby dismissed.