1. DECISION MAHMOOD AHMAD SOOFI (CHAIRMAN).-This appeal purports to have been instituted under section 9 (3) of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969. The appellant has described himself as the Vice-Chairman of the Municipal Employees' Union, Toba Tek Singh, District Lyallpur. The appeal is directed against an, order passed by the Registrar of Trade Unions, Sargodha Region, Lyallpur, on the date 10th of October 1970, by which the application of the Municipal Employees' Union, Toba Tek Singh, for registration was rejected on the grounds stated in paragraph 2 of Memo. No. RTU/SR/K- 48/6526, dated 10-10-1970, addressed by the Registrar of Trade Union, Sargodha Region, Lyallpur, to the General Secretary, Municipal Employees' Union 136/2, Cali Tehsildar, Toba Tek Singh, District Lyallpur, on the subject "registration of Trade Union under the Industrial Relations, Ordinance, 1969, paragraph 2 of the respondent's letter to the appellant's Union was couched in the following terms:- "On examination it has been found that the Union known as "Municipal Employees' Union, Toba Tek Singly" has been formed of persons engaged in the levying and realisation of taxes and are performing Governmental functions delegated to the Municipal Committee, as such they are employed in the administration of the State and cannot form a Trade Union within the meaning of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969. Therefore, your application for registration is rejected and has -been consigned to record."
2. The appellant has asserted that the respondent's order regarding the rejection of the application of the appellant's Union for registration is unlawful and contrary to the facts of the case inasmuch as the respondent erred in declaring that the members of the Municipal Employees' Union, Toba Tek Singh, were engaged in the levying and realisation of taxes and were, therefore, performing governmental functions delegated to the Municipal Committee, Toba Tek Singh. According to the appellant the present position of the employees of the Municipal Committee, Toba Tek Singh is not in the least similar to the position of governmental employees particularly because after the enforcement of the new scheme of auctioning municipal octrois all employees of the Municipal Committee in question have become employees of private entrepreneurs. The appellant has, there--fore, moved this Court to direct the respondent to register the appellant's Trade Union under the relevant provisions of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969.
3. The respondent submitted a detailed reply to the appeal under consideration. In that reply the respondent has stressed the fact that octroi clerks are engaged in assessing and realizing taxes, hence they ape performing governmental functions delegated to the Municipal Committee.
4. According to the respondent since octroi clerks are also shown as members of the Municipal Employees' Union, Toba Tek Singh therefore, the application of the Municipal Employees' Union, Toba Tek Singh for registration as a Trade Union was rejected by the respondent. The respondent has also pointed out that in a case entitled Management of Municipal Committee, Mianwali v. The General Secretary, Muharrirs Union etc. (1968 PLC 270), the High Court recorded the below cited ruling: "In so far as the Municipal Committee performs the functions of levying and collecting the taxes it is only per--forming a governmental function. The workmen who are engaged by the Municipal Committee to perform the functions which are in the nature of the regal or the sovereign functions of the government and have been delegated to the Committee will not fall within the category of workmen and any dispute between them and the Municipal Committee will, therefore, be not an industrial dispute."
5. The respondent has further contended that, contrary to the assertion made on this subject by the appellant, the position of octroi clerks of Municipal Committee is identical with that of a government employees inasmuch as octroi clerks perform the functions that the government has delegated to Municipal Committees. It has further been maintained by the respondent that after the introduction of the scheme of auctioning Municipal Committees to private entrepreneurs only certain powers have I been delegated to the auctioneers, but those persons who are engaged in assessing and collecting taxes are still deemed to be functionaries of an agency under the authority of the Govern--ment. For all the above-stated reasons the respondent has prayed for the dismissal of the appeal under consideration.
6. I have given careful consideration to the arguments advanced by the appellant's counsel Mr. Nusrat Ullah, Advocate. I have also examined the record furnished to this Court by Mr. S. A. Naeem, Assistant Director. Labour Welfare, Sargodha Region, Lyallpur. The appellant's counsel has not cited any provisions of the law nor any rule under which it can be held by this Court that all employees of Municipal Committees are workmen within the meaning attached to that term in clause (xxviii) of section 2 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969, and are not employees of the Provincial Government. It stands to reason that only a Trade Union is entitled to apply to the Registrar of Trade Unions for registration in accordance with the provisions of section 6 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969. The expression `Trade Union' has been defined in the below-cited terms in clause (xxvi) of section 2 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969:,- "Trade Union' means any combination of workmen or employers formed primarily for the purposes of regulating the relations between workmen and employers or workmen and workmen or employer and employers, or for imposing restrictive conditions on the conduct of any trade or business and includes a federation of to or more Trade Unions."
7. On the other hand the term `worker' and `workmen' have been defined as follows in clause (xxviii) of section 2 of the same Ordinance:- "Worker and workmen" means any person not falling within the definition of employer who is employed (including employment as an apprentice) in an establishment or industry for hire or reward either directly or through a contractor whether the terms of employment be expressed or implied, and, for the purpose of any proceedings under this Ordinance in relation to an industrial dispute includes a person who has been dismissed, discharged, retrenched, laid of car otherwise removed from employment in connection with or as a consequence of that dispute or whose dismissal, discharge, retrenchment, lay of, or removal has led to teat dispute."
8. All the above-cited provisions of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969, when examined minutely in conjunction with each other, make it transparently clear that unless an employees' Union consists of 'workmen' only it is debarred by the law from applying to the Registrar of Trade Unions for registration as a Trade Union.
9. At this stage it would be rewarding to enquire into the question whether an octroi clerk or any other functionary of a municipal committee can legally be deemed to be a worker or workman within the scope of the definition enunciated in clause (xxviii) of section 2 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969, the provisions of which have been reproduced above 'in extenso'. It is scarcely necessary to labour tae point that an octroi clerk is not a person employed in an establishment or industry for hire or reward either directly or through a contractor. It is, to say the leapt, extremely problematical whether a municipal committee can be regarded as an `establishment' within the meaning attached to that term in clause (ix) of section 2 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969, which is worded as follows: - "'Establishment' means any office, firm, industrial unit, undertaking, shop or premises in which workmen are employed for the purpose of carrying on any manufacturing process, business trade or service."
10. On the other hand it stands to reason that a municipal committee is not an `industry' in any sense of the term. Further-- more, neither in the body of the memorandum of appeal that is under consideration nor in the course of advancing arguments in support of it has it been contended explicitly by, or on behalf of, the appellant that octroi clerks of municipal committees are ever employed for hire or reward whether directly or through a contractor. It is as clear as day-light that a clerk employed by any sort of organisation or government department is a salaried employee of that organisation or government department. The to different terms 'hire' and `reward' cannot be applied to a salaried employee by any stretch of the human imagination. Indeed, it would be a flagrant violation of the usage of the English language to regard the salary of any sort of employee either as, a form of hire or as a form of reward. The term salary denotes a fixed payment made by an employer to an employee at regular intervals for services performed by the employee, which services are usually other than manual or clerical in nature. A monthly salary, for instance; is neither a form of hire nor a species of reward. It is manifestly a form of remuneration that excludes the distinct from described in technical parlance as `hire'. On the other hand the term reward' does not necessarily imply any reward since a person can be rewarded for his work in pecuniary kind as well as in cash and that reward can be given to an employee without reference to any rules relating to remuneration.
11. Keeping all the above-mentioned facts and circumstances in view I have arrived at the conclusion that the appellant and his counsel have failed to adduce any specific facts or explicit provisions of the law under which the members of the Municipal Employees' Union, Toba Tek Singh, can be regarded as workmen employed to any establishment or industry for hire reward. Since there is not factual or legal warrant for holding the appellant's Union to be a Union of workmen, therefore, there is no doubt C whatsoever that the application of the appellant's Union to they Registrar of Trade Unions, Sargodha Region, Lyallpur (i.e. The respondent) under section 6 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969 for being registered as a Trade Union was lawfully and rightly rejected by the respondent. Consequently, this appeal is dismissed.