DECISION ' This appeal from the order of the Labour Court No, III, Karachi, calls in question its dismissal of the petition filed by the present appellant under section 34 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance. The circumstances forming the background of the case in a nutshell, are as follows:-
1. The Karachi Custom Agents Group is a body comprising of different Custom Agents, registered with the Custom House, Karachi. It is engaged in clearing and forwarding of cargo, imported and exported through air, sea rail and road. They employ ad hoc labour available at the 'gate of the Port, to handle cargo by unloading trucks at the wharf, or at the Container Terminal, for unloading the cargo and/or its subsequent loading on the vessels.
2. The aforesaid casual labour in the course of the day can and does work for different Custom Agents, who are also called Clearing and Forwarding Agents. The said workers in due course of time formed a trade union in the name and style of Karachi By Road Workers Union. It had 16 Jamadars of KPT in whose establishments this union was sought to be registered. None of their office-bearers were in the employment of any Custom Agent.
3. Under the constitution of the said trade union any worker employed with those 16 KPT Jamadars could be its member. Once it was registered, it applied for the defermination of a Collective Bargaining Agent. However, the Registrar of the Trade Union on 12-9-1981 filed the letter. But by passage of time, the union started claiming to be the CBA of the different establishments of the Custom Agents, who have got distinct and separate entities of their own. On the 15th of April, 1990 the General Secretary of the Union intimated to the Registrar of Trade Union, the change of office- bearers of the Union. None of these office-bearers were in the employment of any of the Custom Agents and were therefore rank outsiders.
4. The said union has now raised a Charter of Demands under section 26 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance before the Secretary of the Petitioner Group. The petition went on to say that looking to the provisions of the I.R.O. a registered trade union can be formed by workmen of only one establishment or any group of establishments and any union formed or registered in breach of the law would patently be illegal. The Charter of Demands presented by such an illegally constituted union was undermining the guaranteed and secured rights of the petitioners. Their prayer in their own words was formulated, in the following words: "To enforce the aforesaid rights so guaranteed and secured---- and to hold that the respondent No, 1 Union is an illegally constituted body and is not legally entitled to serve a Charter of Demands on the Karachi Customs Agents Group"
' That it is further prayed to direct the respondent No, 2 (Assistant Director Labour) not to initiate any proceedings ' This Hon'blc Court may be pleased to direct respondent No, 2 (Registrar of Trade Unions) to apply to the Labour Court for the cancellation of the registration of the respondent No, 1 Union."
5. The written reply contained preliminary objections to the effect that the petition was liable to be dismissed for want of locus standi. Otherwise too there was no breach of any guaranteed right, available to the petitioners under any law, award or settlement, and if there was any breach of these rights as arrogated, remedy could be sought under Article 199 of the Constitution. It was further urged that the petitioners were estopped from challenging the existence of the union as they had been dealing, negotiating, and arranging their affairs with the respondent No, 1 for a number of years. Otherwise too the petition was replete with travesties of facts; and the same need not be detailed here. It was also added that the union had been formed in 1973 and had been certified as the CBA by the Registrar of Trade Unions on 7-2-1983.
6. An application was filed for the grant of ad interim injunction which came to be dismissed and the Labour Court on the request of the respondent No, 1 agreed to dispose of the preliminary objections. An affidavit was filed by Shaikh Muhammad Yahya, the President of the Custom Agents Group and there was also an affidavit from the side of the Union.
7. The learned Labour Court found that under section 34, I.R.O. Only an employer or a CBA could approach the Labour Court for the enforcement of any right guaranteed or secured to it under law, custom or award, and as the matters stood, the petitioners who had also not exhausted all the remedies could not be permitted to raise any industrial dispute.
8. Mr. Mehmood A. Ghani, learned representative for the appellant took me through the constitution of the Union and its formation which according to him came about against all laws and rules. Its members did not owe allegiance to any one establishment, all its office-bearers were rank outsiders. According to him the Registrar of Trade Unions realised the tenuity of the situation and kept the matter of registration pending for years and even the certification of the Collective Bargaining Ageent came after a long wait and in a surreptitious manner. As the registration itself was illegal, the Labour Court had a duty cast on it, to direct the Registrar of Trade Unions to undo the mischief. Mr. Ashraf, learned counsel for the Union contended that the trade union membership need not be confined to one establishment without registration as a Federation of Trade Unions and referred to the cases of R.B. Avari & Co. Ltd. v. Employees Union, 1975 PLC 371 and Arfat Textile Factory v. The Registrar Trade Union and another 1990 PLC 37.
9. The main thrust of the argument however is that the Labour Court direct the Registrar to apply to it for the cancellation of the Union's registration. I am afraid Mr. Mehmood Abdul Ghani is on tenuous grounds indeed, because he is up against the law as to be found under the IRO and a string of authorities.
10. Section 10 of the IR() reads as under:- "10. Cancellation of registration.---(1) The registration of a trade union shall be cancelled if the Labour Court so directs upon a complaint in writing made by the Registrar that the trade union has--
(i) contravened or has been registered in contravention of any of the provisions of this Ordinance or the rules; or contravened any of the provisions of its constitution; or
(iii) made in its constitution any provision which is inconsistent with this Ordinance or the rules.
(2) Where any person who is disqualified under section 7-A from being elected as, or from being, an officer of a trade union is elected as an officer of a registered trade union, the registration of that union shall be cancelled if the Labour Court, upon a complaint in writing made in this behalf by the Registrar, so directs.
(3) The registration of a trade union shall be cancelled by the Registrar if, after holding such inquiry as he deems fit, he finds that such trade union has dissolved itself or has ceased to exist."
There is also a plethora of judicial pronouncements that it is not the function of the Labour Court to direct the Registrar and that the complaint for the cancellation has to be filed by the Registrar himself before the Labour Court.It was held in National Bank of Pakistan Peoples Federation v.
National Industrial Relations Commission, Islamabad PLD 1975 Kar. 320 that "A Certificate of registration granted to a trade union is conclusive evidence of its registration and can only be cancelled in the manner prescribed in section 10." It was held in Syed Mushtaq Hussain Shah v. Riaz Muhammad Hazarvi PLD 1978 Kar. 612 that "the right to registration by a trade union having been conferred by the IRO, has also the liability to cancellation of registration under certain circumstances, and the statute having provided the authorities by which and the mode in which the registration was to be granted or cancelled, the right of liability cannot be enforced in any other manner or through any other forums." In the case of Riaz Hussain Shah and others v. Punjab Labour Court No, 2, Lahore and others PLD 1977 Lah. 316 it was held that "it is the Registrar, who can lodge a complaint to the Labour Court under section 10. There is no provision for the Labour Court to take up the issue suo motu. There is also nothing in the law or the rules empowering the Labour Court to direct the Registrar to lodge a complaint before it." In the case of National Bank of Pakistan Employees Front Sindh v. Presiding Officer IIIrd Labour Court, Karachi and 3 others 1980 PLC 339, it was held that "where a special statute dealing with a special subject created special liabilities as also provided a special remedy or procedure for the enforcement of the liability, then in order to bring about the consequences contemplated by that statute for the breaches of its provisions, recourse should be had to that statute and to no other statute." Reference may also be made to Gul Ahmed Textile Mills Ltd. v. Registrar of Trade Unions and others 1982 PLC 1038 which contains the following observations "It is a question of fact whether all the prerequisites for registration of the union were allowed to be in existence; but in any case, even if the same are considered to be lacking, the remedy lay in the provisions of section 10 of the Ordinance, which provides for cancellation of registration, if the Labour Court so directs upon complaint in writing by the Registrar, inter alia that the trade union has been registered in contravention of any of the provisions of the Ordinance or the rules".
11. The rules laid down in Bata Shoe Company (Pak.) Limited v. Registrar of Trade Unions of Sindh PLD 1978 Kar. 567 and Holiday Inn Workers v. Registrar of Trade Unions and others 1992 PLC 23 are also to the same effect.
12. Mention must be made also about the latter contention in regard to the enforcement of the rights alleged to be existing in favour of the appellant under the IRO.
13. Mr. Mehmood Ghani learned representative for the appellant in regard to the meaning of the word enforcement, referred to the Law Lexicon by Mukerjee, Castel's English Dictionary, Burton's Legal Thessaurus, Black's Law Dictionary, Ballenanine's Law Dictionary, Stroud's Judicial Dictionary, Prem's Judicial Dictionary and Words and Phrases by Sanders, Business Dictionary by Collins, Mitra's Legal and Commercial Dictionary, Hand-Book of Legal Terms and Phrases by Muhammad Ilyas Khan, and Biswa s Encyclopaedic Law Dictionary. He also painted out that the Labour Court had done its duty to carry out the objects of the Companies Profits (Workers Participation) Act, 1973 when the Rice Export Corporation of Pakistan declined to implement its provisions in its own Company (See Rice Export Corporation of Pakistan Limited v. Sindh Labour Appellate Tribunal and others 1983 PLC 1116 and Rice Export Corporation of Pakistan Limited v. Employees Union, 1981 PLC 805).
14. All I need say is that the Courts come to the aid of the parties for upholding the majesty of law and not for its subversion. The relief sought simply cannot be granted.
15. I am clearly of the view that there is no merit in the appeal. I will therefore dismiss it.