DECISION ' This appeal from the order of the IVth Labour Court, Karachi arises in the following circumstances.
2. The respondent was working as a Junior Clerk with the respondent-Corporation. On the 16th and 17th of September, 1987 he had remained absent from duty and on resumption he had made an application for the grant of leave, due to illness. In support he had produced a certificate from J.P.M.C. It appears that a probe about the genuineness of the certificate followed, and being told that a hoax had been played upon them, as the certificate was fake, the applicant was served with a charge-sheet on 24-10-1987. He submitted the reply on 14-12-1987 which was found to be unsatisfactory and a domestic enquiry was ordered. On the submission of the report he was dismissed from service vide order dated 24-9-1989.
3. The grievance notice was given and grievance petition followed. It came to be allowed vide order dated 10-5-1990, Oh a direction for fresh enquiry as the letter on behalf of Professor M.H. Zaidi the Director of Jinnah Hospital had been accepted by the Enquiry Officer without examining him, in reaching the conclusion that the Medical Certificate produced by the appellant was a fake one.
4. As a result of this order the respondent was reinstated. The author of the letter referred to above was again not examined in the domestic enquiry and he was dismissed from service on 9-8-1990 which was again challenged by a grievance petition, once legal preliminaries had been settled.
5. It transpires that the Enquiry Officer had directed the latter to the Director of the J.P.M.C. For deputing the Medical Officer who had issued the Medical Certificate in dispute. The reply was to the effect that the signature of the doctor in the Certificate was a forgery, and consequently deputing anybody to appear before the Enquiry Officer did not arise at all. Then the respondent was directed to go to the hospital and get the genuineness of the Medical Certificate verified. This he is alleged to have declined and he gave reasons for the same. It was thereafter that the order was passed.
6. The respondent apart from himself examined Pir Bux. Amir Hussain Mughal and S.M. Hassan Askari, the Enquiry Officer were the witnesses on behalf of the appellant.
7. The respondent in his statement mentions that he had given all the particulars of the Medical Officer alongwith the date, the time of the visit to the hospital, and the Duty Roster of all the members on duty in the O.P.D. On that date, but those papers were not referred to the hospital. In the circumstances his going to the hospital for verifying the genuineness of medical certificate would have been all in vain.
8. The record shows that the letter had been issued by Dr. M. Azhar Usmani, Deputy Director. He also was not summoned. The learned Presiding Officer therefor reached the conclusion that the very basis on which the charge rested ha I been undermined. He therefore allowed the petition.
9. It will be otiose to say that Pir Bux the witness produced by the appellant was vertly interested in him as a neighbour, or there was no evidence on the record that the appellant had utilised the entire casual or medical leave for dr the year. The case rests on the sole question whether the Medical Certific ite is genuine or not? In the latter case only, his disnrissal is to be maintained. Le had been dismissed from service as a forger and fabricator of false evidena . He could be dismissed only if the charge was substantiated.
10. It cann )t be so-found as neither Dr. Zaidi nor Dr. Usmani had been examined. If Dr. Zaidi or Dr. Usmani had declined to attend before the Enquiry Office! -- there was no compulsion on them under law to respond to the request by the KTC -- then it was open to the appellant to summon one or both of them during the proceedings before the Labour Court. Here the Court could have seen to it that there was a response. The appellant having failed to do so the entire structure of the case falls on the ground.
11. I will therefore uphold the order and dismiss the appeal.