' The appeal captioned above emerges from the decision dated 20-10-1981 recorded by learned Presiding Officer, Punjab Labour Court No, 4, Faisalabad whereby the grievance petition of the appellant for his reinstatement in service was dismissed.
2. The allegation against the appellant was that he had forged Cheque No, 498434 drawn on Muslim Commercial Bank Limited, Circular Road, Faisalabad and received Rs,35,200 in collaboration with Muhammad Yaqoob, Machine Operator. The cheque mentioned above was issued from a cheque book containing 21 unused cheque leaves from Nos. 498430 to 498450 CD issued to Messrs Sunshine Publicity. It was also alleged that the appellant intentionally entered wrong particulars of the cheque in a day book giving account No, as 6014 instead of 6065 and gave the number of the cheque as 222810 instead of 498434 and mentioned the closed account No, 7 instead of 10. Previously the case was decided accepting the appeal of the appellant but the Hon'ble High Court has remanded the case for the reason that the question of limitation was not decided by this Tribunal. After the remand the appellant gave an application for the amendment of memo. Of appeal and the application for condensation of delay. The amendment has been allowed and the amended appeal and the petition for condemnation of delay have been filed. In support of the amended petition for condo nation the appellant has appeared as his own witness and on behalf of the bank Kh. Bashir Ahmed, officer has been examined as RW.
1. The statement of the appellant is that the date fixed for arguments was 21-10-1981 on which date he had contacted the Reader but he was told that the case was not fixed on that date and asked to come after 10 or 15 days. He further said that thereafter he had been contacting the Reader but every time he had been asking him to come again without giving any date and that when he appeared on 18-5-1982 the Reader told him that the case had already been decided against him whereupon he applied for the copy and after getting the copy, lodged the appeal. R.W. 1 Kh. Bashir Ahmed deposed that as a Law Officer, he had been conducting the cases, and had been appearing in the present case; that the learned Presiding Officer, had heard arguments of the learned counsel for the parties in his presence before' announcing the judgment. He also said that he was present on the date on which the judgment was announced and that he did not remember the date on which the arguments were heard by the Court.
3. Learned counsel for the respondent has argued that the appellant has failed to explain the delay after which he lodged the appeal. Since in the impugned order the presence of the appellant is not recorded, the statement of R.W.1 does not appear to be correct that the appellant was present on the said date. Since neither in the impugned decision nor in any interim order the presence of R.W. 1 is recorded, his statement does not rebut the evidence of the appellant. Thus the appellant had no knowledge of the announcement of the order. This is true that after that he did not make any application regarding the fate of his case but possibility cannot be excluded that he may have been contacting the Reader who did not tell him as to on what date actually the case had been decided. Since the date fixed for hearing of the arguments was 21-10-1981 whereas the date of the announcement is 20-10-1981 a day earlier it is manifest that without hearing arguments the case was decided. There is no order on the file whereby the date may have been changed from 21-10- 1981 to 20-10-1981 and the parties may have been informed. An order passed not on the date fixed but on a date for which there was no notice to the parties and which was recorded without hearing arguments is of no value in the eyes of law. In such cases period of limitation starts from the date of knowledge and not from the date of judgment. So believing the affidavit of the appellant and the statement made by the appellant I condone the delay. Since the case was decided without hearing the parties' counsel, this decision is not maintainable which is set aside and the case is remanded for re-decision after hearing arguments of the learned counsel for the parties. If any of the parties make an application for further evidence, it will be the discretion of the learned lower Court to accept or reject the same in the circumstances of the case and according to the rules.