MAMOON KAZI, J.--The facts of the case are, that the peti--tioner-Company is manufacturing electrical articles in its factory, situated at S.I.T.E., Manghopir Road, Karachi. The respondent No. 2 was employed by the petitioners in their factory as a Winder. On 24-6-1982 one Mr. Tareef Elahi, a Supervisor in the said Company handed over to the respondent No. 2 a tin copper foil (strip) for use in a transformer. The respondent refused to use the strip on the plea that it was defective and unusable. He entered into argument with the Supervisor and both of them went to the office of one Mr. Fazal Naeem who was the Transformer Works Manager in the factory. Mr. Fazal Naeem examined the strip himself and after such examination he found it to be in order and accordingly he ordered the respondent No. 2 to solder the strip. However, in spite of such instructions the respondent No. 2 declined to carry out the orders given by the Manager and left the room.
Separate reports in respect of this incident were then made by Tareef Elahi, Fazal Naeem and one Mr. B.P. Kawesji who was working as Manager, Manufacturing Division and was present in the room of Mr. Fazal Naeem at the time of the incident. Thereafter, a charge-sheet, dated 7-7-1982 was issued to the respondent No. 2 for having committed misconduct on account of his disobedience of the lawful and reasonable orders of his superiors. The respondent submitted his explanation to the said charge which was not found satisfactory as such an enquiry was ordered to be conducted by the management in respect of the said charges. Mr. H.H. Saba was appointed Enquiry Officer for conducting such enquiry wherein the respondent No. 2 participated and was provided full opportunity of defence. The Enquiry Officer after holding enquiry found the respondent guilty of the misconduct with which he had been charged. A second show-cause notice, dated 24-11-1982, was then issued to the respondent No. 2 and an opportunity of hearing was also provided to him.
Thereafter, the respondent. No. 2 was dismissed from service vide letter, dated 15-12-1982. The respondent No. 2 challenged the dismissal by filing an application under section 25-A of the Industrial Relations Ordinance in the Third Sind Labour Court, Karachi which was however, dismissed, vide Order of the Labour Court, dated 11-5-1983. The respondent No. 2 then filed appeal before the Sind Labour Appellate Tribunal, the respondent No. 1 which vide its Order, passed on 19- 11-1984 allowed the respondent's appeal by setting aside the Order passed by the Labour Court and directing the petitioners to reinstate the respondent No. 2 with all the back benefits.
2. The learned Appellate Tribunal while passing the impugned order, observed, that the orders given to the respondent No 2 by his superior were not reasonable considering the overall quality that the worker had to maintain and further that since the elections of the union were due to be held only two days after the dismissal of respondent No. 2 from service, that should also go against the management.
3. The contention of Mr. Kamal Mansoor Alam the learned counsel for the petitioners has been that from the evidence produced by the petitioners before Enquiry Officer, it has clearly been established that the respondent No. 2 had disobeyed the orders given to him by his superiors namely, Mr. Tareef Elahi and Mr. Fazal Naeem the Supervisor and the Manager respectively of the petitioners which orders were both lawful as well as reasonable, therefore, respondent No. 2 was guilty of misconduct as described in paragraph (a) of clause (3) of Standing Order 15 in the Schedule to the West Pakistan Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders)
Ordinance, 1968. The relevant Standing Order is reproduced as under:-- "(3) The following acts and omissions shall be treated as misconduct:--
(a) wilful insubordination or disobedience, whether alone or in combination with others, to any lawful and reasonable order of a superior;"
The learned counsel further contended that the Labour Appellate Tribunal had no jurisdiction to go behind the findings of the Enquiry Officer who had found the respondent No. 2 guilty of misconduct as alleged against him. The last contention of the learned counsel was, that since the Appellate Tribunal had interfered with the findings of the Enquiry Officer, this Court under the circumstances was competent to go into the question whether the Order which was given to the respondent by his superior officers was a reasonable or lawful order. On the question whether the Appellate Tribunal was competent to go behind the domestic enquiry, Mr. Kamal Mansoor Alam has relied on a number of cases. The first case is Muhammad Shamim v. Messrs Pakistan Tobacco Co. Ltd., Karachi and others 1975 SC 11 R 46 wherein it was held that the Labour Court was only concerned with the question whether action taken against an employee was in accordance with law and the question whether such employee did or did not commit offence with which he was charged was a question of fact and could only be enquired into by the Enquiry Officer. The next case relied upon by; Mr. Kamal Mansoor Alam is Messrs National and Grindlays Bank Ltd., Karachi v. Homi F. Behrana and 2 others PLD 1979 Kar. 692. In that case, while relying on the aforesaid case a Single Judge of this Court held that a decision of employer dispensing with services of a workman after conducting domestic enquiry and observing legal formalities should not be lightly interfered with. In yet another case, decided by a Division Bench of this Court and reported as United Distributor Ltd., v.
Zahid Hussain Khan and 2 others PLD 1976 Kar. 376 similar views were expressed. The last case referred to on the point by Mr. Kamal Mansoor Alam is the case of Punjab Road Transport Board Lahore through its Secretary v. Fazal Elahi and another PLD 1976 Lah. 1914 wherein the Lahore High Court while scrutinising the scope of interference in. The findings of the domestic tribunal by the Labour Court held: "The factual part of a domestic inquiry by the employer is open to scrutiny by the Labour Courts only to the limited extent indicated and if they at all undertake such a re-appraisal they should be well-advised to inform themselves of the rules, instructions and the working methods of the Establishment in order to understand the full implications and the background in which such findings of fact have been recorded. To apply the abstract principles' or standards of criminal prosecution or of a civil litigation to such proceedings in the absence of such knowledge would be doing violence to the whole infra-structure of the labour laws."
4. As against this the contention of Mr. Ali Amjad, the learned counsel for the respondent No. 2, was that the appellant, in fact had not disobeyed the orders of his superiors but had only asked for a better quality strip. He further emphasized, that the orders given by the Supervisor and the Transformer Works Manager were not reasonable orders as the strip given to the respondent No. 2 was defective Lastly, the contention of Mr. Ali Amjad was, that since the finding a arrived at by the learned Labour Appellate Tribunal were findings of fact based on evidence recorded by the Enquiry Officer, such findings cannot be disturbed in the exercise of constitutional jurisdiction by this Court merely for the reasons that another view on the same facts was possible. The learned counsel placed reliance on Cotton Export Corporation of Pakistan Ltd. v. The Sind Labour Appellate Tribunal at Karachi and 2 others 1984 -PLC 712, earlier decided by a Division Bench of this Court wherein it was held that the question whether refusal of an order by a workman constitutes misconduct, is a question of fact to be determined by the Tribunal and it cannot be interfered with by the High Court in the exercise of constitutional jurisdiction unless it is shown to be perverse or contrary to record.
The learned counsel also drew support from Crescent Jute Products Ltd., Jaranwala v. Muhammad Yaqub etc., PLD 1978 SC 207 in which case, while examining the import of the words "shall go into all the facts of the case" occurring in subsection (5) of section 25-A of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, the Supreme Court was of the view that such words clearly signified that the Junior Labour Court had full and complete power to enter even into the questions of fact and arrive at its own conclusions regardless of there being no illegality of procedure in the domestic ,proceedings.
It was further observed by the Supreme Court in that case, that the intention of subsection (5) of section 25-A appeared to be to provide another forum in determining a grievance afresh after considering the facts on which an impugned dismissal was passed. In view of these observations by the Supreme Court, Mr. Ali Amjad contended before us, that since the Labour Court which is now the successor of the Junior Labour Court, can go behind the findings arrived at by the Enquiry Officer and since the powers of the Labour Appellate Tribunal are co-extensive with those of the Labour Court under section 25-A of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, therefore, the learned Appellate Tribunal was fully empowered to go behind the findings of the Enquiry Officer and arrive at its own findings. Once such findings have been arrived at by the Labour Appellate Tribunal, the same cannot be disturbed by the High Court in the exercise of its constitutional jurisdiction.
5. In view of these arguments, the questions which arise before us now, are: (i) whether the learned Appellate Tribunal could go behind the findings of the Enquiry Officer, (ii) whether this Court can interference with the findings arrived at by the Labour Appellate Tribunal in respect of the misconduct alleged to have been committed by the respondent No. 2 and (iii) if the answer to the second question is in the affirmative, then the third question arising for determination would be, whether refusal by the respondent to solder the strip constituted misconduct in terms of Standing Order 15(3)(a).
6. As far as the question of going behind domestic enquiry by the Labour Court or the Labour Appellate Tribunal is concerned, the later view of the Supreme Court in Crescent Jute Products case has left no doubt that the Labour Court, or for that purpose, the Labour Appellate Tribunal are empowered to go behind the enquiry conducted by the domestic tribunal.
7. Coming to the next question, i.e. Whether this Court can interfere with the findings of the Labour Appellate Tribunal, Mr. Ali Amjad has vehemently argued that since the question is as to the lawfulness or reasonableness of an order it is a question of fact and one such question has been determined by the Labour Appellate Tribunal, it cannot be interfered with by this Court in the exercise of its consti--tutional jurisdiction. The lawfulness or reasonableness of an order are to be determined according to the circumstances of each case and if this argument of Mr. Ali Amjad is accepted it amounts to saying that this Court is not competent to go behind the findings arrived at by the Labour Court or the Labour Appellate Tribunal even if such findings border on absurdity. We are afraid, such a view is hard for us to accept. Even the rule laid down by the Division Bench of this Court in the Cotton Export Corporation case, referred to by us earlier, is no' B absolute as it was observed there that the High Court can interfere with the findings of the Labour Appellate Tribunal if such findings are found to be perverse or contrary to record. We are however of the view that the said judgment of this Court is not fully attracted in this case as the question before the Appellate Tribunal, in the instant case, was not a mere question of fact but a mixed question of law and fact, therefore, this Court is fully competent to go behind the findings of the learned Appellate Tribunal if such findings are found to be not based on proper appreciation of the evidence on record.
8. As far as the lawfulness of the order in question is concerned, the same has not been disputed by Mr. Ali Amjad, but as to its reasonableness, the learned Counsel has vehemently argued that the strip in question was defective and incapable of being soldered, as such the order given to the respondent by his superiors was not reasonable. Mr. Ali Amjad has further relied upon the statement of Tareef Elahi, the Supervisor in the petitioner-Company, which was recorded by the Enquiry Officer and reference to English translation whereof can be found in the order of the learned Appellate Tribunal. Tareef Elahi had stated before the Enquiry Officer that soldering of the strip in question was not done well but still the strip was soldered'. Be that as it may, but still we cannot overlook the fact that it was not for the workman to refuse to use the strip when he was ordered by his two superiors to do so.
9. In the impugned order, reliance has also been placed by the learned Appellate Tribunal on the judgment of the Division Bench of this Court in Cotton Export Corporation case, referred to by us earlier. We may make it clear, that in that case a driver of the Cotton Export Corporation had declined to obey the order of his superior to attend to some urgent work of the Corporation during lunch hour. The conclusion arrived at by the Division Bench was that such order given to workman by his superior was not reasonable. The facts of that case are, therefore, clearly distinguishable.
Contrary to that, in the instant case, the respondent had absolutely no justification to refuse to obey his superior I officers. If such liberty is allowed to a workman, then anyone can refuse to work on the pretext that the material supplied to him by the employer is defective or unusable.
10. The next contention of Mr. Ali Amjad that the respondent had only asked for a better quality strip is not established from the record of the case. On the contrary the evidence recorded by the Enquiry Officer points out that the respondent received only one strip from the Supervisor which he refused to use in the transformer,
12. Under the circumstances, the impugned order cannot be sustained. We, therefore, allow this petition and declare that the order, dated 19-11-1984 passed by the learned Labour Appellate Tribunal is without lawful authority and of no legal effect. There will be no order as to costs.
M.Y.H.