DECISION The circumstances in which these two appeals against the common order of the Labour Court No. l Karachi allowing the two petitions filed by the petitioner under section 25-A; IRO have arisen, are as follows:- It was alleged by the petitioner that he had joined the respondent establishment in the year 1981 and was detailed in installation duties. However, he was being paid at the end of the month on daily wages basis without any allowances and without any other facilities as admissible to their permanent employees.
2. The petitioner had been beseeching the respondent to redress his grievances, and having failed to get their ears had sent a grievance notice on the 30th of April 1988. The same was not replied to.
He was therefore constrained to file the petition with the prayer that he be treated by the respondent as a permanent workman from the day he had joined their service, and be assigned Grade-IV with all the admissible allowances to which a permanent workman is entitled.
3. It is further, alleged that the above-said grievance petition was filed before the Labour Court in the month of June 1988 and the notice of its hearing was served on the respondent on the 4th of July, 1988. This action on the part of the petitioner had irked the respondents. He was called upon to withdraw the petition and as he had declined to comply with their demand, his services were unceremoniously terminated the very next day. After having served another grievance petition he had filed the other petition with the prayer for his reinstatement in service with back benefits.
4. The petitions came to be resisted on the ground that the employment was temporary. However, it was admitted therein that he had been working with them from 1-4-1984 though on temporary basis at Rs. 25 per day doing installation work. It was also averred that the petition was barred by time and was otherwise liable to be thrown out as it was not based on any right. The termination of service as alleged was not disclaimed. The other allegations also came to be denied.
5. The petitioner was his own witness and Muhammad Aslam, Manager, Planning and Installation was the only witness of the respondent. The Labour Court found that the petition had been filed within time; and direction was issued to treat the petitioner as a permanent workman after he had completed 9 months service, and to assign him Grade-IV with all admissible allowances available to a permanent workman retrospectively. They were further directed to reinstate him in service with full back benefits.
6. Aggrieved by these orders the respondent preferred two separate appeals, which I propose to dispose of by this common decision.
7. The contention in regard to the bar of limitation vis-a-vis the earlier petition need not tarry in. He had sought his remedy certainly after years of denial but it being a matter of continuing injury, there would be, recurring cause of action every month. (See Mubashir Ahmad and others v. Messrs Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation Ltd., Appeals Nos. KAR-165 to KAR-169 of 1988, decided on 7-9-1988).
8. The respondent had deposed that his services had been terminated on the 5th of July, 1988 but the case 'set up by the appellant was that the termination had taken place on the 30th of June.
Ultimately the respondent's stand came to be accepted by Muhammad Aslam in his cross- examination who also admitted that the respondent was working with them since 1981 and that there was no break in his service. He also admitted that the respondent was working on the installation work of Telephone Exchanges, which included cabling, wiring, soldering, jumpering and iron work which are jobs of permanent nature.
9. According to Black's Law Dictionary the word "temporary" means that which lasts for a limited time only, as distinguished from that which is perpetual or indefinite in its duration, opposite of "permanent." In the Standing Orders Ordinance it has been defined as follows:-- "(1)(e) A temporary workman is a workman who has been engaged for work which is of an essentially temporary nature likely to be finished within a period not exceeding 9 months."
10. The question therefore arises whether the telephone installation work which has been expanding from day to day, for all these years can at all dubbed a work of temporary nature as is being done by the appellants. There is nothing whatsoever to show that the respondent had been called for any special contingency of a limited period. He is therefore more than a decade without any break. In the circumstances of the case the ratio laid down in Pakistan International Airlines v.
Sindh Labour Court No. 5 and others PLD 1980 Supreme Court 323 will not be attracted.
11. And the record also clearly shows that he came to be axed only when the petition by him had been filed for the improvement of his terms and conditions.
12. He was very much a permanent workman and Muhammad Aslam admits that his services were terminated without any letter of termination. This cold simply not be done under the law as it stands (See Allah Ditta v. Punjab Lahore Appellate Tribunal and another PLD 1985 Lah. 407, Pakistan Transport Service v. Zaheeruddin Babr 1986 PLD 567.
I am therefore clearly of the opinion that the impugned order is unassailable. As a result the appeal stand dismissed.