' This petition under Article 199 of the Constitution calls in question the orders dated 13-1-1988 and 13-3-1988, respectively passed by the learned Labour Court and the Punjab Labour Appellate Tribunal.
2. Necessary facts giving rise to this petition are that Muhammad Ashraf, respondent No,3 got employment with the petitioner company in 1984 as Technician Grade-5. He was confirmed against the said post in 1985. Subsequently in 1986, it transpired that along with his application for employment he had submitted a forged Matriculation Certificate. After inquiry his services were terminated with effect from 30-6-1986. Respondent No3, however, succeeded in obtaining an order from the Labour Court on 13-1-1988. Whereby he was reinstated in service with back benefits. This order was obtained by him in a petition filed under section 25-A of the I R.O. The employer impugned the order of reinstatement before the Put ,' if, Labour Appellate Tribunal but appeal was dismissed vide order date. 13-3-1988. Present writ petition has been filed to challenge the reinstatement of respondent No,3.
3. It is an admitted position that Matriculation was not the required academic qualification for the post of Helper/Technician, against which respondent No3 was appointed. This is also the admitted position that the Matriculation Certificate which was allegedly appended with the respondent's application for appointment is fabricated one. No evidence has been led in the departmental inquiry that respondent No,3 had produced the fabricated Matriculation Certificate at the time of his appointment. The finding against him has been recorded on the basis of his admission allegedly made by him in his statement before the Enquiry Officer, under his signatures. The learned Punjab Labour Appellate Tribunal dealing with this point came to the following conclusion:- "The disputed point was whether copy of the Matriculation Certificate had been produced by the respondent along with his application for - appointment as a Technician? Since the respondent was denying this fact, it was necessary to prove it in the enquiry. The statement of person under enquiry is recorded during the enquiry in order to give him opportunity to explain the material brought against him during the enquiry and not with a view to get any admission from him or to get the charge proved from his statement. In the present case since no prosecution witness was examined to prove that in reality the copy of the Matriculation Certificate has been produced by the respondent, the charge did not stand established. Therefore, there was no occasion to record the statement of the respondent. The respondent denied his signatures on his statement recorded by the Enquiry Officer. No doubt, the Enquiry Officer was examined as R.W.2 and he deposed that the respondent did appear before him and that he after recording his statement has affixed his signatures thereon but it is difficult to say that the signatures appearing on his statement belong to him. His application for service and other admitted documents bear his signatures in English and not in Urdu. Whereas on his statement, which is alleged to have been recorded by the Enquiry Officer bears the signatures in Urdu. One document Exh. D.1 appears to be the original application for service and another document Exh. D.1 is its Photostat copy. Both the documents have come from the custody of the appellant. The photo copy bears the signatures of the respondent in English on the left side, whereas the original application for leave Exh. D.1 does not bear his signatures in Urdu. The signatures in Urdu appear to have been forged."
' After considering the respective stands of the parties and the material produced by them, the learned Labour Appellate Tribunal upheld the finding of the Labour Court that respondent No,3 did not produce the fake certificate nor did he commit any fraud with his employer, and confirmed the order of reinstatement.
4. Learned counsel for the petitioner has vehemently argued that respondent No,3 has committed misconduct by producing a fake Matriculation Certificate and he admitted his guilt in the statement made by him under his own signatures before the Enquiry Officer. He has further contended that the signatures appearing on the statement of respondent No3 before the Enquiry Officer could neither be compared by the learned Appellate Tribunal nor do they in fact differ from the admitted signatures of respondent No,3. On the other hand, learned counsel for respondent No3 has supported the orders passed by the learned Appellate Tribunal. He argued that there was no occasion for his client to have signed the statement before the Enquiry Officer, especially when he has refused to accept the show-cause notice or join the inquiry. According to him, purported signatures of respondent No,3 on his alleged statement before the Enquiry Officer are patently forged.
' The case of respondent No, .3 can be more properly appreciated in the context of the stand taken by him in his statement before the Labour Court as P.W. 1, that a Stenographer of the company had obtained Rs,2,000 from him for getting him employed. That Stenographer had typed the application and gave wrong qualifications. In this background it will not be unreasonable to form the view that petitioner himself did not produce the fake certificate and the same was fabricated and annexed with the application of respondent No, 3 by the Stenographer, with a view to ensure his employment. Therefore, denial of respondent No, 3 that he did not submit any Matriculation Certificate along with his application for employment is not an untenable plea.
6. As pointed out by the learned Labour Appellate Tribunal, no independent evidence was produced by the petitioner company either in the departmental inquiry or before the Labour Court that respondent No, 3 had himself produced the fake certificate alongwith his application for appointment. The only material produced is the statement made by respondent No, 3 before the Enquiry Officer, in which he admitted his guilt of producing the fake certificate. This statement bears the signatures of respondent No, 3 in Urdu. The photocopy of his statement before the Enquiry Officer is available at page 33 of the file. It,had been tendered before the Labour Court as D.9/1. The application for the post of helper made by respondent No, 3 has been appended by the petitioner as Annexure T at page 26. The fake certificate is Annexure 'K' at page 27. The signatures of Muhammad Ashraf on his application at page 26 are in Urdu. Since this document has come from the custody of employer company signatures of respondent No, 3 on this application will be treated as admitted signatures of Muhammad Ashraf, respondent No, -3. I have myself compared the alleged signatures of Muhammad Ashraf (in Urdu) on his statement made before the Enquiry Officer with his admitted signatures on his application for appointment. The two signatures do not tally and are patently different. The conclusion drawn by the learned Labour Appellate Tribunal that signatures of Muhammad Ashraf at his alleged statement before the Enquiry Officer are forged is, therefore, correct. Interestingly enough, on the left hand corner of his application signature of respondent No, 3 also appear in English. Same signatures of Muhammad Ashraf appear on the fake Matriculation Certificate. Signatures of Muhammad Ashraf in Urdu appear under "yours obediently" on his application for appointment. There is no reason why his signatures in English should also appear in the bottom corner of this application when he signed the application in Urdu at the proper place. Similarly, his signatures made in English on the Matriculation Certificate do not make any sense. There is joining report Exh. D.2 appended as Annexure `L' with the writ petition.; On this joining report Muhammad Ashraf has put his signatures in English. Signatures of respondent No, 3 on this joining report are drastically different from his purported signatures in English on his application for appointment and the Matriculation Certificate. Obviously somebody has also forged his signatures in English on his application and the Matriculation Certificate. There is no manner of doubt that his signatures have been forged on his alleged statement before the Enquiry Officer. Exh. D.6 (Annexure 'M' of the writ petition) is copy of the show-cause notice. There is endorsement on this document that respondent No, 3 refused to receive the show-cause notice.
He also refused to receive the notice of inquiry vide Annexure 'N'. If the respondent refused to receive the show-cause notice and the enquiry notice, then it can reasonably be inferred that he did not join the inquiry proceedings and somebody with the connivance of the Inquiry Officer forged his signatures on his purported statement before the Inquiry Officer, admitting his guilt.
7. What appears to have happened is that somebody in the office of the petitioner company obtained money from respondent No, 3 for getting him employment in the company. He typed his application showing him as matriculate and got his signatures (in Urdu) on this typed application.
Apparently he appended with the application fake Matriculation Certificate in the name of respondent No, 3, with a view to ensure his employment because Matriculation was not the required qualification but it would have given him advantage over other non-matriculate candidates. A fake Matriculation Certificate has no doubt been produced but it is difficult to conclude that it was done by respondent No, 3 himself or with his knowledge. Since Matriculation was not the required qualification for the job offered to him his re-instatement ordered by the learned Labour Court as affirmed by the Punjab Labour Appellate Tribunal is unexceptionable.
8. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that it was not open to the learned Labour Appellate Tribunal to have compared the signatures of respondent No, 3, has no force. A Court is entitled to compare the disputed signature under Article 84 of the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984, B to arrive at the correct decision. Placing reliance on Mst. Ummatul Waheed and others v. Mst. Nasira Kausar and others (1985 SCM R 214) and All Ahmad alias All Ahmad Mia v. The State (PLD 1962 SC 102) the following observations were made in Abdul Ghaffar v. Muhammad Sharif (1993 CLC 1779):-- "It may be pointed out that Article 84 of Qanun-e-Shahadat is an enabling provision leaving to the discretion of the Court to satisfy itself as to the proof of the handwriting or the signatures in case any dispute has been raised as to their genuineness. One of the modes for proving such handwriting or signatures is by reference thereof to a handwriting expert for comparison, however, the Court is also empowered to compare the disputed handwriting or the signatures with the admitted signatures and then arrive at its own findings. As has been held by the Supreme Court in the case of Mst. Ummatul Waheed after referring to the case of All Ahmad alias Ali Ahmad Mia v.
The State (PLD 1962 SC 102), the Court is entitled to compare the handwriting even if there be an opinion of an expert on the subject. Such course, the Court must adopt particularly when no opinion of the expert is available before it. After all, the Court has to do complete justice between the parties. The mere facts that no request has been made to the Court to compare the disputed signature with admitted signature would not justify such failure on the part of the Court to compare the signature itself."
9. The concurrent findings of fact arrived at by the learned Labour Court and the Punjab Labour Appellate Tribunal after going through the evidence on record and comparing the disputed signatures of the petitioner, cannot be interfered in extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court under Article 199 of the Constitution. The conclusions arrived at by the Tribunals below are not only free from errors of jurisdiction but are otherwise just and proper, in the circumstances of the case.
Resultantly, there is no merit in this petition which is dismissed with costs.
10. On 14-3-1988 the following interim order was passed:-- "Counsel for the petitioner wishes to amend the writ petition in view of the fact that the appeal has been decided. He may do so. It is further clarified in the light of objection of counsel for respondent No,3 that in the event of failure of this writ petition, respondent will be entitled to all the back benefits."
Keeping in view the terms in which the above interim order was obtained by the petitioner from this Court, respondent No,3 is entitled to be reinstated with all the back benefits. In the case of Chairman, Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation v. Naseer Ahmad (1995 SCM R 1593), while dismissing the appeal the Honourable Supreme Court directed the payment of the dues to the employee by making the following order:-- "We, therefore, dismiss the appeal with costs. Respondent No,1 would have retired on reaching the superannuation in the year 1985. He shall be entitled to all the admissible monetary benefits he would have been entitled to had he not remained out of the job in consequence of the impugned order."
' In view of the terms of the injunctive order referred to above and the dictum laid down in the precedent case, it is directed that respondent No,3 shall be entitled to all the back benefits as ordered by the Labour Court plus all the admissible monetary benefits he would have been entitled to had he not remained out of the job because of the stay orders granted by the Labour Appellate Tribunal and this Court. Result, therefore, would be that respondent No,3 shall be reinstated with full back benefits with effect from the date he was turned out of service by the petitioner.