DECISION ' These appeals arise from the consolidated order of the Second Sindh Labour Court, Karachi, whereby the grievance Petitions Nos. 63 to 109 were dismissed on merely hearing of the Preliminary Legal Objections.
2. The facts in brief are that 135 workers of a Garment Factory known as Zeenat Shirt Factory, the appellants in these appeals, were permanent workmen of respondent Zeenat Shirt Factory, Karachi.
The services of all of them were terminated by the management on 30th of August, 1992 for the reason alleged y to effect retrenchment and to reduce the manpower to avoid losses as the orders for garments from U.S.S.R. Had stopped due to break-up of the Socialists Republics. Very strangely, after termination of their services; they were made to sign resignations for financial reasons. The workers then realised that they had been paid their dues after resignations, which were less than the dues they were legally entitled to receive on termination. On the top of it more than 200 workers of different categories were employed and the workers who had been retrenched were not called for the purpose of re-employment under. Standing Order 14 of West Pakistan Standing Orders Ordinance, 1968. All these workers therefore served the management with grievance notice signed by all of them. The grievance notice was rejected by the management. The workers accordingly filed their grievance petitions before the Second Sindh Labour Court, Karachi but the learned Labour Court passed consolidated order dated 19th January, 1994 dismissing all the petitions as being not maintainable on the ground that the grievance notice in respect of their re-employment under Order 14 had been sent to the management "jointly" by all the affected workers.
3. The affected workers in Appeals Nos. 40 to 79, 80 to 86 and 93 to 94 were heard by the learned Sindh Labour Appellate Tribunal presided over by Agha Ali Hyder, C.J., the then Appellate Tribunal.
Without commenting on the plea that individual grievance notice should be given separately and not as consolidated notice signed by all workers the Tribunal held that: "An aggrieved person should be given a chance to present his case properly.
' Fragmentary disposal of cases cannot be commended and has to be avoided, as it can sometimes prolong litigation and bring misery to the litigant public. It can be resorted to only in a case which is concluded by an authoritative pronouncement on the subject which is not the case here?
' I will therefore allow the appeal and remand the case to the Labour Court, for disposal of the entire case in accordance with law covering all the issues involved in the dispute including the maintainability of the petition, after evidence by the parties.
4. In compliance with this order dated 21-4-1994 remanding the case to the Second Sindh Labour Court, Karachi, all the cases were sent back to the concerned Court for re-trial. Mr. Mehmood A.
Ghani for Zeenat Shirt Factory, Karachi filed Preliminary Legal Objections before that Court that the workers could not seek remedy under section 25-A of the I.R.O., 1969 because their case was for re- employment and not against termination as a result of an industrial dispute or which had given rise to an industrial dispute as held in 1994 SCM R 2213. It is laid down in that very judgment that: ' Every judgment must be read as applicable to the particular facts proved, or assumed to be proved... Generality of the expressions which may be found in the judgment are not intended to be expositions of the whole law, but governed and qualified by the particular facts of the case in which such expressions are to be found."
' It was also held that: " Case is only an authority for what it actually decides and cannot be quoted for a proposition that may seem to follow logically from it."
5. On that basis this Tribunal had already disposed of similar legal objections that: "It is only on the facts proved that it can be decided as to what law should be applicable in such cases."
6. In every case of this nature mixed questions of law and fact are involved and no case can be decided on Preliminary Legal Objections only, without recording the evidence and without giving decision on all the issues of law and fact. In this case too I find that the learned Labour Court has reached the Conclusion on law points, in haste, without following the directions of this Tribunal which were specific and mandatory. These Legal Objections should have been decided after recording of evidence, together with the other issues of fact involved in these cases as directed by my learned predecessor Agha Ali Hyder, J. It is not therefore understood why these directions have been totally disregarded by the Labour Court.
7. All the appeals are therefore allowed and the Labour Court is directed for the second time, to record fresh evidence and decide all the issues of law and fact involved in the cases.
' Cases remanded.