DECISION This appeal calls in question the order of the Labour Court whereby the petitioner under section 25- A of I.R.O., 1969, praying for reinstatement in service, came to be dismissed. Shorn of details, it arose in the following circumstances.
2. The petitioner was appointed as a Flight Steward by the respondent --Corporation in 1980. On 11- 3-1990 he was ordered to operate Flight No. PK--737 KHI-PAR. On the 18th March, 1990, while staying at a hotel in Paris he was hauled-up by the police alongwith one colleague by the name of Syed Mahmood. Both were tried at Paris on the charge of smuggling of heroin, wherein the petitioner was given a sentence of seven years. He had preferred an appeal wherein he was given the benefit of doubt and released from custody. He had landed at Karachi on 18-3-1991, and learnt that he had been dismissed from service on 26-2-1991. It will be in the fitness of thing to produce the order of dismissal, which reads as under-- "It has been reported that you operated PK-737/110390 KHI-PAR and apprehended at Paris on 12-3- 1990 for alleged smuggling of Narcotics and detained in Paris in judicial custody. Therefore, a case was submitted to the Management for taking necessary action in the light of gravity of the case.
After detail and careful examination of the case and keeping in view the Standing Order 12(i) of West Pakistan (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968 and Labour Law with effect from 1-11-1989 after amendment in PIAC Act, 1956, the Management has decided to dismiss your services from the Corporation with immediate effect.
Therefore, you are dismissed from the service of the Corporation with immediate effect on account of above severe offence. The period of your absence effective 12-3-1990 till date has been treated as Absence Without Leave.
Your dues if any will be settled by the Finance Manager (Flight Services) subject to deposit of all the Corporation properties/documents with the concerned departments and return of the attached clearance form duly completed in all respect."
3.The petitioner had preferred a `Departmental Appeal on 9-4-1991 but as nothing was being heard about its results for months together, he had served the grievance notice on 25-9-1991 and thereafter came the petition in the Labour Courts. The petition came to be resisted, inter alia, on the ground of non-joinder of the proper party.
4. The petitioner was his only witness and Syed Hammad Zaidi, Personnel Officer appeared on behalf of the respondents.
5. The Labour Court, for the reasons given by it, dismissed the petition resulting in this appeal.
6. I have heard Mr. Muhammad Tasnim, learned counsel for the appellant and Mr. Masood Ahmed Khan, learned Advocate for the respondents. '
7. It was contended by Mr. Muhammad Tasnim, learned counsel for the appellant, that as the appellant had been dismissed without any show-cause notice, a domestic enquiry or personal hearing, the order was altogether invalid and the appellant was entitled to be restored to his job.
However Mr. Masood Ahmed Khan, learned counsel for the respondents submitted that though the order did mention that he had been dismissed from service, yet the letter has got to be read in its entirety and as a whole, and that will clearly make out that the same was intended to be in accordance with the scheme of Standing Order 12(i) of the Standing Orders Ordinance. In that context he had referred to the case of Ghazanffar Hussain v. Rehmat Bibi and others 1989 CLC page
310. Support is also found for this proposition from Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes, 10th Edition, page 29, wherein it has been observed:-- "Perhaps as a general proposition the words of a statute should be construed in accordance with the dictum of Lord Watson, who says with regard to deeds, in an unrecorded case, `the deed must be read as a whole in order to ascertain the true meaning of its several clauses, and the words of each clause should be so interpreted as to bring them into harmony with the other provisions .... If that interpretation does not violence to the meaning of which they are naturally susceptible."
8. I have no doubt that the author of the letter had passed the order, under clause (1) of Standing Order 12, though he tripped, by the use of the word "dismiss".
9. However it was urged by Mr. Muhammad Tasnim, learned counsel for the appellant, that even if it were to be construed as an order of retrenchment, it had failed to mention that one month's wages and other dues as enjoined in Standing Order 12(1) will be paid to him and that will vitiate the order.
10. Mr. Masood Ahmed Khan, learned counsel for the respondents had, however, referred me to the case of Road Transport Corporation, Labour v, Sher Muhammad 1971 PLC page 212. The notice in the precedent case was defective in the sense that it did not specifically give to the petitioner one month's wages. Mr. Justice Inamullah, the first Chairman of the Appellate Tribunal, repelled the contention and observed "that the respondent should not to be reinstated. He should have been allowed to get the pay for one month as calculated on the basis of average earned by the workman during the last three months".
11. Reference was also made by Mr. Masood Ahmed Khan to the case of Sindh Road Transport Corporation v. Muhammad Hayat Khan 1983 PLC page 401. It was held therein "it merely entitled a workman whose services were retrenched to one month's notice or pay in lieu thereof, but does not make the order of termination invalid if the workman is not given one month's notice or the order terminating the services does not specifically state that he could collect his wages in lieu of notice."
12. Similar was also the view taken in the case of S.R.T.C. v. Bakshan and others 1980 PLC 735. The decision had been challenged in a writ petition before the High Court. The order was affirmed with the following observation:-- 'That the order of retrenchment cannot become void because of non--payment of one month's salary. The validity of the order is to be judged on the basis, as to whether respondent No. 1 was in fact entitled to retrench the staff on the relevant date and not on the basis whether they failed to pay one month's salary after passing the above retrenchment order. At the most the petitioner can enforce the recovery of the above amount.
Support was found from the principle laid down in Ghulam Sarwar v. Province of Punjab 1982 SCMR 46.
13. The reason for the retrenchment finds an explicit mention in the order. He had brought bad name to the Corporation. They could ill-afford to retain him on their pay roll. No exception can therefore be taken to the order.
14. In the result I will dismiss the appeal.