1. ' MAMOON KAZI, J.---The petitioners have called in question the decision of the learned Labour Appellate Tribunal Sindh dated 2-10-1988.
2. ' The facts of the case are that respondent No,3 joined the service of M/s. Standard Vacuum Oil Co.
3. Ltd., the predecessor of the petitioner in this case, in 1949. At the time of joining of service the respondent had shown his date of birth as 15-8-1924. Subsequently, in 1983 the respondent requested the petitioners to make alteration in his date of birth as, according to him, he had actually been born on 1-12-1929. The respondent also produced documentary evidence before the petitioners in this regard. However, the request of the respondent was not considered favourably by the petitioners. In the meanwhile the respondent was due for retirement from the petitioners' service on 15-8-1984 after attaining the age of 60 years but the petitioners granted a year's extension to the respondent and he thus became due for retirement on 14-8-1985 on which date he was actually made to retire from service. The respondent being aggrieved by such action of the petitioners first sent his grievance notice to them under section 25-A of the IRO and he subsequently filed a grievance petition before the learned Fifth Labour Court, Karachi. The respondent's petition was, however, dismissed vide order passed by the learned Labour Court dated 29-9-1987 firstly on the ground of limitation as, according to the learned Labour Court, a grievance in regard to the alteration in his age was for the first time raised in 1983 and consequently the grievance petition filed before the learned Labour Court in 1985 was time-barred and secondly, the case of the respondent was also found to be weak on merits. Being aggrieved by such order the respondent filed his appeal before the learned Appellate Tribunal which allowed the said appeal and set aside the order passed by the learned Labour Court vide its decision dated 2- 10-1988, and hence the present petition.
4. ' We have heard Mr. Mohammad Humayoon, learned counsel for the petitioners and Chaudhry Abdul Rasheed, learned counsel for respondent No,3.
5. ' After going through the orders of the learned Labour Court and the learned Appellate Tribunal, we have reached the conclusion that the present petition purely involves appreciation of evidence by the two learned Tribunals below and in view of the nature of jurisdiction exercised by us under Article 199 of the Constitution we are not inclined to enter into appreciation of evidence already considered by the two learned Tribunals. As it has been pointed out earlier the findings of the learned Labour Court in regard to the limitation are based on a letter dated 31-5-1983 which was written by the respondent to the petitioners and in which a request was made by him to the petitioners to make correction in his date of birth. This was treated by the learned Labour Court as a grievance notice and consequently it reached the conclusion that the petition filed by the respondent before it was time-barred. We fmd that the findings of the learned Labour Court are not properly conceived because as it is clearly evident from the letter of the respondent, copy of which has been filed as annexure 'M' with the present petition, that it was only a request and nothing can be spelled out therefrom to suggest that the same was a notice. Consequently, we are unable to agree with the findings of the learned Labour Court and, in our opinion, the learned Appall ate Tribunal was right in declining to accept the said findings. So far as the case of the respondent on merits is concerned, the contention of the respondent was that his date of birth actually was 1-12-1929 and it had erroneously been shown as 15-8-1924. Consequently, the action of the petitioners of retiring the respondent on 14-8-1985 was impugned before the learned Labour Court. The respondent in this regard had relied upon various documents which had been filed alongwith his grievance petition as Annexures `A' to 'E'. Such documents included his birth certificate issued by the District Council, Malakand, and the concerned Police Surgeon and his Identity Card. It was shown by all such documents that his date of birth was not 15-8-1924. Contrary to that his year of birth had been shown in the said documents as 1929. It is pertinent to point out that the said documents were also referred for the opinion of a handwriting expert but no evidence of forgery could be discovered by the handwriting expert. However, the learned Labour Court after considering all such evidence produced on behalf of the respondent and the evidence produced in rebuttal on behalf of the petitioners came to the conclusion that the case of the respondent against the petitioners had not been fully established. These findings of fact have, however, been reversed by the learned Appellate Tribunal and the following observations made in this regard may be reproduced in this judgment: "It is an admitted position on record that the appellant was an illiterate person, so, when, he had realized the consequences of wrong entries of his date of birth in the record of the company, therefore, he had made a number of correspondence with the establishment to change the aforesaid wrong entries and thereafter make correct, genuine and lawful entries with regard to date of birth in the light of his National Identity Card, issued by the Government of Pakistan, birth certificate issued by the District Council, Malakand, N.-W.F.P., but, for the reasons, not known, his all requests were rejected by the management. It would be pertinent to note that this correspondence between the appellant and the management was made during the years 1982 and 1983 and at that time the question of any mala fides, forgery and/or manipulation by the appellant did not arise. Most important document which was correctly relied upon by the appellant was his birth certificate issued by an authority, namely, District Council, Malakand, N.-W.F.P., and if there was any apprehension of forgery, manipulation and/or incorrectness of the certificate, then, it was the duty of the management to move the learned Labour Court for summoning any of the resonable persons from the District Council, Malakand, alongwith the concerned record, but, this binding requirement of law was not complied with. The entries which had been relied upon by the management are simply oral version, at the time of original appointment of the appellant, particularly in view of his illiteracy. As regards the point of limitation, I would observ6 here that actually a cause had accrued to the appellant just after getting the letter of his retirement and not at the time when the said correspondence was exchanged between the parties, therefore, the present grievance petition cannot be said to be barred by time. However, Mr. Ch. Rasheed Ahmed, the learned Advocate for the appellant has submitted that besides the above facts on record, the appellant had also placed on the record of the learned Labour Court Service Card issued by Standard Vacuum Oil Company and/or RSSO, showing the entries of his date of birth as 1-12-1929 and besides this, the appellant has also brought on record a Medical Certificate, issued by Dr. Asghar Ali Baloch, Police Surgeon, Karachi, but, the learned Labour Court has failed to take into consideration all these facts while passing the impugned order. I see much force in all these contentions of Mr. Ch. Rasheed Ahmed, the learned Advocate for the appellant. As regards the evidence of Handwriting Expert, it is not a case that the appellant had made forgery or manipulated the entries of Birth Certificate issued by District Council, Malakand, National Identity Card, First Service Cards and/or the Medical Certificate issued by Police Surgeon. In support of his contentions, Mr. Ch. Rasheed Ahmed, the learned Advocate for the appellant has also placed his reliance on the principles laid down in the cases, reported in 1987, PLC at page 807; 1981 PLC at page 443; 1983 PLC at page 217; 1986 NLR at page 47 and a Decision of this Tribunal in Appeal No, Kar-157/1986, dated 2-3-1988 (1989 PLC 241). On the other hand, I find nothing new in the arguments of Mr. Mohammad Humayoon, the learned Advocate for the respondent management which he had already submitted before the learned Labour Court. He has not been able to controvert the arguments of Mr. Ch. Rasheed Ahmed, the learned Advocate for the appellant and/or to produce any authority of the superior Court to rebut the principle laid down in the authorities as had been relied upon by Ch. Rasheed. In view of the matter, I would hold that the learned Labour Court has passed an incorrect impugned order without fully appreciating the evidence, facts, documents, and circumstances as well as the legal aspects, brought on record by both the parties. I would, therefore, hold that the appellant was wrongly retired from his service and that his actual date of birth was 1-12-1929 and not 15-8-1924, thus, he is fully entitled to continue in the employment of the respondent establishment till the date of his actual and factual attaining of the age of 60 years with effect from 1-12-1929."
6. We would like to point out that as has been observed earlier it is not for us to enter into any appreciation of the evidence in the exercise of Constitutional jurisdiction. Mr. Mohammad Humayoon although has argued that the learned Appellate Tribunal has misread the evidence but we are unable to agree with him on this point as nothing can be spelled out from the decision of the learned Appellate Tribunal to lead us to such an inference as is also evident from the observations of the learned Tribunal just reproduced by us.
7. ' Since no other issue has been raised before us by Mr. Mohammad Humayoon, we find no force in this petition and the same is, therefore; dismissed. The parties are, however, left to bear their own costs.