' In this appeal the decision, dated 11th December, 1980 passed by the learned Presiding Officer, Punjab Labour Court No, 1, Lahore has been challenged, whereby the grievance petition of the respondent was accepted and the proceedings started against him were quashed.
2. The respondent was initially appointed by the P. R. T. S. And on 1st February, 1977 when P. U. T. C.
Came into existence, his services were transferred to the said establishment and he was posted in Kot Lakhpat Depot. He was Head Cashier. On 15th July. 1978 his cash was checked and a shortage of Rs, 10,128.74 was detected and it was found that he had overdrawn a sum of Rs, 4.000 during the months of March to May, 1978 in the pay bills of the staff. He was charge-sheeted and an enquiry was held against him, in which he was found guilty. Second show-cause notice was issued to him which is Exh. D-35. The respondent challenged the proceedings in his application given under section 25-A of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969 on the grounds that the charge-sheet was time-barred and that the Managing Director was not competent to give charge-sheet and to order enquiry According to him. The Director Finance is his appointing authority. The learned trial Judge accepted the pleas of the respondent to the effect that the Managing Director was not competent, therefore, he neither could serve the charge-sheet, nor order enquiry against the respondent, nor could issue second show-cause notice.
3. It has been argued by the learned counsel for the appellant that the Director Finance was competent to appoint and dismiss the respondent under the delegation of powers given in rule 7 and that the Managing Director being above the Director Finance, he is also deemed to be the delegatee of the powers and that since both of them were competent, the charge-sheet given by the Managing Director and the order of appointment of the Enquiry Officer as well as the issuance of second show-cause notice are not without jurisdiction. On the other hand, the learned counsel for the respondent has argued that as principally the Director Finance had been delegated powers by P.R.T.B. And only by way of presumption the Managing Director can be taken to be the delegatee, therefore, unless it had been shown that the Director Finance was for some reasons incapable of issuing the charge-sheet, ordering enquiry and giving second show-cause notice, the Managing Director could not perform his functions. I do not find any force in this argument. Where two officers have concurrent jurisdiction, any one of them may exercise the same. This is true that the Director Finance being below the Managing Director, usually he should have issued the charge- sheet and appointed the Enquiry Officer, but if the Managing Director exercised his jurisdiction, does not mean that he was not competent. There may be some reasons for which the Director Finance neither issued the charge-sheet, nor appointed the Enquiry Officer, nor gave second show- cause notice, but the mere fact that on the record those grounds were not brought, it would not mean that the action taken by the Managing Director was without jurisdiction.
4. However, there is another defect, which is that factually this is wrong that the charge-sheet was given by the Managing Director. It was given by Mr. Naseer-ul-Hasan Zaidi, Director Operation and he was not competent. The charge-sheet is Exh. D-1 and the signatures can be read as Naseer-ul- Hasan Zaidi. The seal is of the Managing Director, meaning that the charge-sheet was not signed by the Managing Director himself, but by Naseer-ul-Hasan on his behalf. The signatures appearing on second show-cause notice Exh. D-35 of the Managing Director do not tally with the signatures appearing on Exh. D-1, therefore, it is apparent that the charge-sheet was not signed by the Managing Director. Since the charge-sheet was given by an incompetent authority, it was not a legal charge-sheet and the whole structure raised upon it falls to the ground.
5. The charge-sheet is not time-barred. The misconduct was discovered on 15th July 1978 but the charge sheet was delivered on 24th August 1978. The case of the appellant was that the misconduct was brought to the notice of the Managing Director on 25th July 1978. The learned counsel for the respondent has argued that the respondent was not responsible for the fact that the misconduct was brought to the knowledge of the Managing Director with ten days' delay. If the delay had been considerable, the contention made on behalf of the appellant could not have been believed, but since only ten days, delay took place in bringing the misconduct to the notice of the Managing Director, it cannot be said that this was a made up affair simply to meet the delay.
6. Since the very charge-sheet was given by an incompetent authority the learned lower Court was justified in quashing the proceedings. There is no force in the appeal, which is dismissed.