DECISION ' This is an appeal against the order dated 20-9-1989 passed by the learned Presiding Officer, Fourth Sindh Labour Court, Karachi, whereby the respondent was ordered to be reinstated without hack benefit.
2. I have heard Mr. Ch. Latif Saghar, learned Advocate for the appellants. Respondent is absent. Mr. S.M. Kohistani his Counsel has remained absent for want of instructions as according to him his client has not contacted him. I have perused the record of the case.
3. The brief facts of the case are that on 31-10-1987 respondent and other workers were allegedly gate stopped. He served grievance notice upon the appellants on his behalf and on behalf of other unnamed workers and thereafter filed grievance petition wherein he claimed for his reinstatement alongwith his co-workers with full back benefits and for payment of Rs,4 lacs as past dues for him and other co-workers. The appellants resisted the grievance petition denying the relationship of employer and employee between the respondent and the appellants. The learned Labour Court has, however, ordered the reinstatement of the respondent only without hack benefits.
4. The only evidence produced by the respondent in support of his claim, that he was employed by the appellants is a letter Ext: "A/3" purporting to have been signed by Choudhry Muhammad Yousuf, Manager and which is on the letter head of the appellants. The respondent in his cross- examination has, however, admitted, that the signature on Exbt. "A/3" is not of Choudhry Muhammad Yousuf but it is of one of his clerks, whose name he did not know. The appellants have disowned the letter of appointment and claim that it did not bear the signature of any one connected with the Management and it was a forged document. They admit their letter head, but allege it to have been stolen.
5. Even if this letter is accepted to have been issued by some person for the appellants, still it shows, that the respondent was appointed as Jamadar, who was also to prepare list of workers of every shift and send the same twice a month to the head office for payment. In the cross- examination he has admitted that he used to supervise the work of 140 workers. He has given the details of the duties performed by him and by the co-workers in his grievance application in para. 2 given as under:-
(a) to run the Trolly as weighing labour who is absent;
(b) to collect the vacant bags of rice and clean the bags in which there remains rice in the corners of the bags;
(c) to sweep the rice fallen on the bye road while loading and unloading as well as clearing the hag;
(d) to fill in bags from these fallen rice;
(e) to collect the vacant bags and cleaning them from the dust and rice and arrange them into bundles of 25 bags and sew them;
(f) to hand over these bundles of bags and filled bags to your manager after getting it counted;
(g) any other work ordered by the Site Manager Mr.Anis Ahmed."
He is not clear as to what duties he used to perform and what duties were performed by the workers, whom he used to supervise. If he used to supervise the work of 140 workers, he could not do any other duties mentioned by him in para. 2 which are manual in nature. The learned Labour Court has held that he was workman as he was doing clerical work, which is not even asserted by him in his grievance application or in his affidavit-in-evidence. The preparation of the list of workers as mentioned in the alleged appointment letter Exbt. "A/3" would be incidental and ancillary to his main work as supervisor. According to this letter he would be paid salary of Rs,1,170 per month. As such, he could not be considered as workman and therefore, could not invoke the jurisdiction of the learned Labour Court under section 25-A of the LR.O., 1969.
6. For the aforesaid reasons, I allow the appeal and set aside the impugned order of the learned Labour Court.