DECISION The appeal calls in question the order of the Labour Court whereby the petition under section 25-A, I.R.O. Came to be allowed with full back benefits. The circumstances in which it has arisen are as follows:--
2. The petitioner was working as an Office Assistant in the Quality Assurance Department of the respondent-Company. On 18-11-1990 he was served with a charge-sheet which reads as under: "In view of the resignation by Quality Assurance Manager, with whom you were attached, the General Manager of the Company has taken over the charge of Quality Assurance Department.
You were accordingly directed by the General Manager to sit in the Main Building to be easily accessible to the General Manager.
In spite of repeated instructions, you have refused and/or failed to --' obey the aforesaid instructions and still continue to sit at your previous seat.
Apart from disobedience, with your refusal and obstinate behaviour, you have made it impossible for the General Manager to look after the affair of the Quality Assurance Department, as well, resulting into losses to the company.
You have also refused to receive the written instruction vide Communication No. MAIR/MS/90, dated 19th November, 1990, and consequently the management was constrained to send the said communication by post.
Aforementioned acts on your part fall within the preview of misconduct as defined by Standing Orders Ordinance.
You are, therefore, hereby directed to submit your written explanation within three days from the date hereof, failing which the Management shall be within its right to assume that you have no explanation to offer."
3. He had replied to the same but as the same was not found satisfactory an Enquiry Notice was issued and Mir Mazhar Ali, the Labour Welfare Officer was appointed as the Enquiry Officer. He had examined a number of witnesses and submitted the enquiry report with the finding that the charge of misconduct stood substantiated against the petitioner. As a result of this report he came to be dismissed from service on 20-8-1990.
4. The petitioner had sent the grievance notice on 13-11-1991 which remained un-replied and later the petition was filed before the Labour Court.
5. The petitioner apart from himself examined Ghulam Muhammad, the Treasurer of the Union while Shahid Ghazanfar, the Assistant Manager and Mir Mazhar Ali, the Enquiry Officer, came to be examined on behalf of the respondents.
6. The Labour Court, for the reasons given by it, allowed the petition with full back benefits resulting in this appeal.
7. The respondent was working as Office Assistant in the Quality Assurance Department of the Company. The Manager of this Department had some times earlier resigned, and the work was being looked after by one Muhammad Hafeez. However, the General Manager of the Company namely. Col. M.M.H. Kizilbash had personally taken over the control of this Section and had directed the respondent to shift to his Wing of the main building. It was some hundred paces away from the place where the respondent had his seat. He conceded in the cross-examination that the General Manager had personally directed him on the telephone to move-over. He had however stated before the enquiry that there were two telephone calls to him from the General Manager and did not resile from that. There is also the evidence of Shahid Ghazanfar that a letter had also been sent to the respondent but he had refused to accept the same.
8. In view of the allegations that the complaint had emanated from the General Manager though in the name of Personnel Manager, and all the persons examined in the enquiry naturally were subordinate to him, I will desist from adverting to their testimony. The appellant has not said that the enquiry contained any thing more or less than what he had stated thereat. But I will not refer to the same and confine my observation only to what has been said by him in reply to the charge- sheet and his testimony in the Labour Court, authenticity whereof is not in question.
9. In his reply to the charge-sheet, dated 18-11-1990, which is in Urdu and has been translated by me, he had stated that his work was being supervised by his Manager Mr. Hafeez and "I work under his direction. He had proceeded to Italy. You had directed me verbally that I shift with my record to the Main Building. I have not refused to carry out the orders but according to our Manager's direction I needed directions from him in the matter. I had requested you that as he was due to return soon, on his return I will carry out the orders as directed by you. As regards the allegation in regard to the refusal to receive the letter, I say that I had not refused to receive the letter, but had requested that it should be kept pending till the return of my Manager .............................---
10. Let us now advert to what he had to say in his affidavit.
11. He stopped short by saying that he had not violated any Rules and Regulations and had been run down because of his involvement in the Union activities. But in the cross-examination he admits of receiving the telephone call from the General Manager to shift to the Main Building. He had also the audacity to say that he had told the General Manager "That I was responsible to my Assistant Manager Mr. Hafeez and that he should talk to him whether I should go over and sit at a place in the Office of the General Manager."
He also admits receiving a letter from Shahid Ghazanfar, Assistant Manager to shift to the Building but: "I had not shifted my seat to the Office of the General Manager and was waiting for Mr. Hafeez to return from Italy to seek his instructions. Mr. Hafeez returned from Italy three days after I received the letter of Mr. Shahid mentioned above. After his return I did not seek instructions from Mr. Hafeez about the letters of Mr. Shahid and I also did not shift my seat to the Office of General Manager ..........................................................................................................--- It appears from the cross-examination that he had gone to Hafeez on his return, and informed him of the happenings, with a request that he should talk to the General Manager. Hafeez was examined by the Enquiry Officer at a later stage and very properly, to find out as to how the matter really stood and Hafeez did not lend any support to what the appellant had to say about him.
12. The testimony of the witnesses at the enquiry and before the Labour Court and what the respondent himself has to say put in juxtaposition hardly leave any room for doubt about the cantankerous and insolent behaviour of the respondent to the highest functionary. The defiance showed by him persisted all along and was properly visited with an order of dismissal. An employee with such behaviour will be the despair and the undoing of any institution.
13. The learned Presiding Officer did not care to look into the salient feature of the case and confined his attention to the fairness of the proceedings alone. The respondent had made repeated applications for the change of the Enquiry Officer only on the ground that he was subordinate to the General Manager. There was no personal allegation against the Enquiry Officer.
But any body else in his place also would have been subordinate to the General Manager. His first application of the series was even before the enquiry had begun. All these had been replied to and very properly turned down. There is nothing to show that the co-worker who was in a different shift was not given up by the respondent. At any rate in the circumstances of the case where every thing is documentary as referred to earlier, it will be much of a muchness that the co-worker was not there. The witness had been fully cross-examined and the papers were 'duly signed. I am afraid the conclusions reached by the learned Presiding Officer were hardly warranted. As for the alleged grudge due to the Union activities, he had no role to play there.
14. Mr. Latif Saghar, learned counsel for the respondent had referred me to the cases of Naseer Ahmed v. Lipton 1988 PLC 23, which is a decision of this Tribunal, 'Muhammad Shakeel v. Sindh Labour Appellate Tribunal 1984 PLC 148, which is a judgment from the High Court and Pakistan International Airlines v. Junior Labour Court No. 5 PLD 1978 SC 239.
15. As for the Tribunal's case the observation is that the perusal of the enquiry papers showed that there was no proof that the appellant had ever refused to obey any lawful order of either the Operator or the Supervisor. There was also the finding that the personal grudge of Machine Operator had also not been rebutted. The fact in the second case was that the order of the vacation of the Quarter was after the expiry of 14 years, while the petitioner was still in service and that too without assigning any reason. It was in these circumstances that it was held that it was not a reasonable order and at the most merited lesser punishment than dismissal. The Supreme Court case did not pertain to the violation of any lawful and reasonable order of Airhostess's superiors but involved only violation of rules, the charge being the leaving the place of duty without permission. Demonstrably none of these citations would be of any assistance to the respondent.
16. I am clearly of the opinion that the dismissal of the respondent from service was eminently justified. The impugned order is, therefore, set aside and in the appeal is allowed. revisions by the competent authorities. Therefore, it is advisable to consult the official sources or legal professionals for the most up-to-date and accurate information.