' S. ABDUL JABBAR KHAN (CHAIRMAN)-- ljaz Hussain Jaffary, former Registration Moharrir, has filed this appeal under section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunals Act, 1974, in which he has impleaded the Deputy Commissioner/District Registrar of Registration, Gujrat and Inspector-General of Registration, Punjab, Lahore as respondents.
2. By virtue of this appeal he has prayed that the impugned order, dated 9-7-1984 as well as previous order, dated 30-12-1982, be set aside and he be re-instated in service w,e,f, 30-12-1982, with full benefits.
3. Brief facts of the case are that the appellant was retired from service after completion of 25 years service while he was serving as Registration Moharrir, Gujrat, by the Deputy Commissioner/District Registrar, Gujrat vide impugned order, dated 30-12-1982. The appellant filed review petition under Article 13 of the P.C.O. 1981, for review of the said order before the Inspector- General of Registration, Punjab. The Inspector-General of Registration, Punjab, vide his judgment, dated 9-7-1984 upheld the order of the learned Deputy Commissioner/ District Registrar, Gujrat.
Hence this appeal.
4. We have heard the learned counsel for the appellant as well as learned District Attorney assisted by the representative of the Department and have perused the record of this case carefully with their assistance.
5. Learned counsel for the appellant has come out with a grievance that Mien Waheedud Din Rathore, Inspector-General, Registration, Punjab, in his judgment, dated 9-7-1984, has himself observed that Deputy Commissioner/District Registrar, Gujrat, was not competent authority to pass such order against the appellant. It has been submitted that when the Inspector-General, Registration, Punjab, has himself declared the Deputy Commissioner, Gujrat as incompetent authority, how could he uphold his order which is contradictory to his own assessment. According to the learned counsel for the appellant, the right course would have been to first set aside the order passed by the Deputy Commissioner, Gujrat, and then assume the authority himself and could have retired the appellant under section 12(ii) of the Punjab Civil Servants Act, 1974, as a simpliciter without attaching any stigma of corruption or bad record against him. In this manner the gravamen of the argument against the impugned order is that the learned Inspector-General of Registration had blown hot and cold in the same breath and had acted absolutely in complete violation of Rules and Regulations so laid down in this behalf.
6. On the other hand learned District Attorney has submitted that learned Inspector-General of Registration, Punjab had taken absolutely a different stand in his judgment, dated 7-10-1984, in case of Kh. Mahmoodur Rahim, Registration Moharrir, Tehsil Office Gujrat (on L.P.R.) by holding that in fact the Commissioner would be the competent authority in the case of Registration Moharrir and sent the review petition to him for decision. According to the learned District Attorney the objection raised in para. 3 which was so reproduced by the Inspector-General of Registration, Punjab, that he would not be competent authority, was upheld by him in the concluding paragraph of his judgment. In this way the learned District Attorney did not support the judgment so made and impugned before us although to the extent of competency of the Deputy Commissioner/District Registrar, Gujrat vis-a-vis Registration Clerk/Moharrir.
7. We have given our anxious thought to the arguments advanced by the parties and are faced with the situation whether the judgment impugned before us is supported neither by the appellant nor by the learned District Attorney, who represented the respondents. If the learned Inspector- General of Registration, Punjab, was of the opinion that the Deputy Commissioner/District Registrar, Gujrat, was not a competent authority for retiring a Registration Moharrir/Appellant, we fully agree with the learned counsel for the appellant that he should have set aside the said order and should have himself proceeded as a competent authority to retire him from service under section 12(ii) of the Punjab Civil Servants Act, 1974. In case we accept the argument of the learned District Attorney that Deputy Commissioner/District Registrar was the competent person to retire Registration Moharrir (appellant) from service, even then the impugned order is liable to be set aside because this order contained observation that Deputy Commissioner/District Registrar was not the competent person to retire Registration Moharrir/Appellant.
8. It has also been revealed during the course of arguments that in fact the aggrieved Registration Moharrirs against merger of their cadre with the general cadre have got a stay order from the civil Court which matter is still pending before the High Court. It is also on the record that some of the Registration Moharrirs came before this Tribunal in which they did assail the merger notification but their appeal was rejected by this Tribunal and it was held that the notification was correct. We have been informed that the matter is pending before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, wherein status quo has been maintained vis-a-vis those who have already been merged and those who were already there. However, no Leave to Appeal has been granted in that case. In these circumstances the position is stalemate and the matter is still undecided.
9. We also find that the learned Inspector-General of Registration, Punjab has himself relied on the strength of the stay order issued in favour of the appellant by the civil Court and on that strength he came to the conclusion that the Deputy Commissioner/ District Registrar, was not competent authority in case of the appellant. He has not referred to the judgment of the Punjab Service Tribunal in this case, therefore, he was not conscious of the said judgment when he made this observation in his judgment, or in the alternative he placed more reliance on the stay order than the factum of the judgment so made by this Tribunal. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the judgment so before us is liable to be set aside as it suffers from confusion/contradiction therefore, the same has got no value in the eye of law. The confusion is worse conferred when we read another judgment of the learned Inspector-General of Registration in case of Kh. Mahmoodur Rahim, Registration Moharrir about which we have made a reference in the earlier part of our judgment .And find that he himself submitted the case to the Commissioner holding that he would be the competent authority to decide this case and thus surrendering his own competency in the said case.
10. The result is we accept the appeal, set aside the impugned order of the Inspector-General of Registration, Punjab, as it is neither here nor there. As far as the order of the Deputy Commissioner/District Registrar, Gujrat, is concerned we will not touch that order as we have in our own judgment upheld the stand of the Government that the notification by which merger was so made with the general cadre of these Registration Moharrirs was valid notification. However, judgment of this Tribunal is still sub judice before the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the respondents are at liberty to take any measure which they like according to law and rules and the judgment so delivered by us. However, there will be no order as to costs.