1. On 14October, 1975 the petitioner Mr. Ghulam Mustafa, Accountant, Muslim Commercial Bank Ltd., Abbottabad preferred a petition under section 25-A of the I. R. O., 1969 for his re-instatement. The petition was contested and after recording such evidence as the parties wished to produce, this Court vide its order, dated 30th September, 1976 ordered the reinstate--ment of the petitioner. The respondent, however, went in appeal against the decision of this Court and his Lordship the Chairman, Labour Appellate Tribunal, North-West Frontier Province, Peshawar was pleased to remand the case to this Court for a decision that whether grievance notice had been given by the petitioner to the respondent-Bank. The present order will therefore, be confined to the fact that whether grievance notice under section 25-A of the I. R. O., had been served by the petitioner on the respondent or not.
2. In para 5 of the petition, the petitioner contended that he had served a grievance notice on the respondent but he had received no reply from the respondent. In its written statement the respondent in para 5 has not given any reply to the allegations raised in para. 5 of the petition. The respondent has, however, contended in para. 2 of its written statements that the petitioner had not served a notice under section 25-A of the I. R. O., and as such the Petition was not maintainable.
3. According to the principle laid down in rule 3 of Order VIII of the Civil Procedure Code a defendant is required to reply to each fact which is alleged against him separately and it is either to be admitted or denied. Every allegations of fact in the plaint must be taken to be admitted if it is not denied specifically. There is no doubt in para. 5 of the written statement the allegations raised in para. 5 of the petition have not been denied. In the present case the petitioner closed his evidenceth on 8July, 1976 except his own statement. On 30July, 1976 the learned counsel for the respondent preferred an application. In this application he listed the following objections:-
(1) That petitioner was not a workman.
(2) That the petition was time barred.
(3) That no grievance notice as contemplated by section 25-A of the I. R. O. had been served by petitioner on the respondent.
4. At the concluding end of this application the respondent prayed that the above objections may kindly be added to the written statement of the respondent. This application was rejected by this Court vide its order, dated 30July, 1976 (Order Sheet). It thus means that even the respondent was of the view that an objection with regard to the non-service of notice under section 25-A of the I. R.
5. O. was not contained in its written statement. It appears that when this Court did not give a findings with respect to the service of notice in its final order, dated 30th September, 1976 it was because this point in a way was already determined because of the order, dated 30th July, 1976. It may further be mentioned that in its statement before the Court the petitioner had stated that he had served a notice under sec--tion 25-A of the I. R. O. on the respondent. The petitioner produced a copy of this notice which is Exh. P. W. 5/5. No objection was raised when the document was exhibited. In the I. R. O., there is no specific mode prescribed for the service of the grievance notice.
6. The petitioner stated that he had given the notice by hand to the employer. The respondent witness Abdul Qadir, Assistant Vice-President stated that the petitioner had not given any notice. In view of the fact that the petitioner in para 5 of the petition had clearly stated that he had served a grievance notice on the respondent and that the respondent had not denied this allegations in para. 5 of the written statement plus the fact that the respondent had requested this Court to allow it to add this objection to written statement and the fact that this application was rejected on 30th July, 1976 alongwith the fact that the grievance notice was exhibited lead one to the only conclusion that the petitioner had served the grievance notice as required by law. It may further be mentioned that labour laws are biased in favour of the worker and the Labour Courts are supposed to interpret law in a way favourable to the workers. It is, therefore, held that the petition is maintainable and the grievance notice has been served on the respondent.