An application under section 25-A of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969. hereinafter mentioned as the Ordinance, has been filed by Mehtab Ali, ex-Projectionist, Regional Training Institute, Multan, set up by Punjab Population Planning Board, for his re-instatement in service of the said Institute by setting aside the order of termination dated 15-9-75 passed against him by the Secretary, Punjab Population Planning Board, Lahore. His services were terminated against the charge of exhibiting blue-prints (nude films) to the public after the office hours on 25.3-75 unauthorised, whereas, his duty was to exhibit these special films to the trainees of the Institute in accordance with the departmental instructions. The stand of the petitioner is that he has been illegally terminated from service without any proper enquiry. The preliminary objection raised for the respondent is that the petitioner is not entitled to be governed under the provisions of the Ordinance by virtue of its subsection (3) of section 1. In other words the jurisdiction of this Court has been challenged on the contention that the petitioner can be said to be a person "employed in the administration of State" and therefore excluded from the purview of the Ordinance. It is pleaded that the Regional Training Institute is a local training centre working within the ambit of District Family Planning Board under the Punjab Population Planning Board which is Government Department owing its existence and authority to the Central Government through Central Family Planning Council of Which the Central Health Minister is the Chairman. So the preliminary question to be determined is whether the petitioner being an employee of the Family Planning Regional Training Institute can be said to be a person employed in the administration of State.
2. There are two aspects of the proposition to be determined in this case. The first relates to the applicability of Ordinance and the second relates to the question whether the Regional Training Institute can be classed as an `Industry' as defined in the Ordinance. As regards the first part of the proposition I had recently an occasion to form the view in the judgment given in the case Project Director, Co-operative Karkhana Aalat-a-Zari, Bahawalpur v. Mushtaq Ahmed (1976 PLC 590). It was held, therein that not only the persons exercising administrative functions in public service are excluded from the purview of the Ordinance but the balanced view would be that all the govern-- ment employees at whatever level of public service should be deemed to be 'employed in the administration of State' provided the public office held by them involves the exercise of public power, in howsoever small amount in relation to the primary or sovereign functions of the State. In other words the civil servants employed in any Public Department within the paramount set up of civil administration are excluded from the scope of the Ordinance. However, the persons employed in any commercial enterprise set up as a project or a statutory corporate body under the authority of the State for the performance of certain delegated functions to serve its commercial interests cannot be said to be employed in the administration of State.
3. By a careful perusal of all the provisions of the Ordinance, no other intention can possibly be deduced from the expression "any person employed in the administration of State" occurring in section 1 (3) of the Ordinance. Because no legislative intention can be imputed to any provision of the statute which may look to be unusual and against the plain language and meaning thereof besides putting it out of the harmony of other provisions. It is also to be noted with reasonable concern- that the labour laws are enacted to ensure the welfare of the workers of the enterprises operating purely in the nature of industrial or commercial establishments. Such workers ought not to be confused with the class of government servants working purely in the State administration The "administration of the State" in its primary phase cannot at any rate be said to be performing any functions other than the sovereign functions and on that score all its employees provided they stand within the primary set up of the civil administration must be regarded to be performing in some amount or other functions of sovereign nature while exercising public authority proportionate to the nature of their duties. There is no public function, may it be performed at howsoever low rung in the governmental organization, that would not involve the exercise of official authority, of whatever nature it may be, required to be exerted by him under the instructions of his superior officers who come in direct picture in the exercise of that public function or power.
4. Under the provisions of the Ordinance a dispute may arise between a C. B. A. Union and the industrial Management regarding the employment or non-employment of certain workers, (section 22(12)(a)), the workers participation Management (section 23-B), the framing of service rules including policy about promotion and discipline (Section 23 (b) (6), or even the very appointment or removal of employer as the definition of, industrial dispute suggests, All such differences can easily take the colour of a political strife which can hardly be said to have been intended to be encouraged under the Ordinance. No public servant, of however low rang, can be dissociated from the interaction and interdependence of the whole body of public functionaries from the highest to the lowest in, the performance of public duties in the inseparable chain of civil administration. The possible exceptions in this respect, if any in their generality distinguishable from the particularity of their functions, may be the contingent paid employees, part-time staff, menial staff, Malies, Beldars. Apprentices, Piece-rated or work-charged workers, or staff drivers, who may be shown to have been affected while functioning beyond the field of public duties of the primary set up of the State administra--tion to be amenable to the provisions of the Ordinance.
In case the expression "any person employed in the administration of State" is regarded to include the civil servants engaged in the administration of state up to administrative level of public functions, this would mean to include all the government servants standing within the non- gazetted field of service to claim the unusual benefits given by the Ordinance. Such an interpretation of the provision may lead to some complications of vital import. The right of strike recognized in favour of industrial workers has been counter acted to the right of look-up given to the employer which may operate in certain situations to be a balancing factor regarding an industrial dispute in a private industrial organization. But any such conflict between the public servants and their superior authorities in State administration would take different turn and the right of lockout might remain dormant and in exercise able by the State authorities. More ever, in the provisions of the Ordinance the processes of initiation, negotiation, conciliation arbitration, or adjudication of any industrial dispute are adequately workable in regard to industrial concerns where the labour class is at work. But it cannot with the same convenience to be put in practice by an employer in the Government Department to effect these processes while maintaining the essential peace and discipline in the ranks of the contesting civil servants while keeping up the inherent decorum of the civil administration. However, it does not mean that the class of civil servants thereby would stand deprived of the redressal of its grievances. The modern processes of administrative law carried through the administrative tribunals provide the answer to the problem leaving the industrial disputes, the regulation of Trade Unions and the individual grievances of factory workers to be resolved by the Labour Courts. Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan has accordingly provided in section 212 for the establishment of Provincial Administrative Courts or Tribunal to exercise exclusive jurisdiction in respect of the matters relating to the terms and conditions of civil servants of Pakistan. So the administrative tribunals have been established under the Provincial Govern--ments to exercise the said exclusive jurisdiction under the sanction of central Legislature by the enforcement of the Provincial Services Tribunal (Extension of the Provisions of the Constitution) Act, 1974. The working of the Punjab Administrative Tribunal- stands regulated through the Punjab Administrative Tribunal Act, 1974, which applies to all the Civil servants throughout the Punjab and the tribunal is to exercise exclusive jurisdiction in respect of their service matters.
In the back ground of the foregoing discussion I am of the view that the petitioner working as 'Projectionist' in the family planning Regional Training Institute is a person "employed in the Administration of State" inasmuch as the Institute has been established by the Provincial Government in implementation of the National Scheme of Population Control through family planning of birth control. The Provincial Population Planning Board and the District Family Planning Boards are purely Government Departments and the national programmes in regard to the control of population through birth control has been enforced in exercise of the primary or sovereign functions of the State. This being so, and the petitioner being an integral part of the departmental machinery to put into effect some of the relevant details of the programmes in exercise of the public functions peculiar to his job, he must be deemed to be a person "employed in the administration of State."
What survives to be determined is the second and less important part of the problem i.e. the question whether the Family Planning Regional Train--ing Institute, Multan, can be classed as an "Industry.' This aspect has been regarded by me as less important for the reason that the term 'Industry', whether looked at in the Ordinance or adjudged in retrospect in relation to the previous legislations on the subject, has no reference to the applicability of the industrial law. But somehow the application of the law relating to the indus--trial disputes from the remote past till before the enforcement of the Ordi--nance to settle the industrial disputes has always been determined in the light of the definition of 'Industry' or 'Worker." Of these two terms the consi--deration of the former has more or less held the fullest sway throughout judicial pronouncements of the superior Courts. However, the inconclusive nature of the definition of "Industry" has led to much debate as to its legal import in order to distinguish it from an ordinary business of calling. The making of distinction was necessitated by the important legal obligations attributable to the "Industry" as distinguished from any other common law institution operating in the form of any business, service or occupation. All the same the definition of "Industry" from the earliest industrial legislation till now has remained almost the same except for the one originally introduced through the Ordinance enlarging it to look at it through different nomenclatures without changing its inherent meaning or import. But even this enlarged definition could hardly live for a period of ode year and wa3 replaced by the simple definition almost on the original lines to read as follows in section 2 (xiv) of the Ordinance:--- "'Industry' means any business, trade, manufacture, calling, service, em--ployment or occupation."
There has been interesting debate in the judicial decisions of great importance on the problem whether the simple words given in the definition should be given their plain and well known meaning or they are to be read in their accepted conventional sense. The decisions given by the Australian Courts in the first instance were resorted to in this behalf under the principle of interpretation given by the Maxwell to the effect that all words, if they be general and not precise, are to be restricted to be the fitness of the matter i.e. to be construed as particular if the intention be particular. The matters came to be discussed in the case of Cricket Club of India (1969) 1 L L J 750 in which it was held that a club despite owning an immovable property of great value, running canteen and charging normal fees for admissions in the matches in its own stadiums, did not fall in the definition of 'Industry' as the club activities could not be characterised as the operations of an 'Industry.' The controversy was settled in case of Safdar Jang Hospital's case (1970) 2 L L J 266 in which it was ruled that a Hospital, Nursing home or a dispensary not running as a business in commercial way could not be said to be an 'Industry' in the popular sense of the term despite having the outward elements of any industry. The matter was made a subject of very elaborate discussion in the esteemed judgment given by his Lordship. Mr. Justice Shafi-ur-Rehmen in Writ Petition No. 1210 of 1972 (perhaps not so far reported) regarding the status of Christian Technical Training Centre, Gujranwalla, in which the relevant references given above were thoroughly appreciated on the weight of extensive case law and it was conclud--ed that in the context of industrial and labour laws the expression "Business" "Trade", "Manufacture", "Calling", "Service", Employment", or "Occupa--tion" apply to any enterprise which is organized, substantially if not entirely, on the co-operation between the labour and capital and having as its object the production, distribution and consumption of wealth, or the production or provision of material services, thereby construing these terms not in their ordinary dictionary meaning but in their popular and conventional implica--tions. By applying this test the Christian Technical Trading Centre was held to be an Educational Training Establishment and not an Industry---.
In the background of what has been submitted above, neither the Regional Training Institute, Multan, can be characterised as an 'Industry' in the popular and conventional meaning nor the petitioner can be said to stand out of the pail of the employment in the administration of State.
Consequently this Court has no jurisdiction to go into the dispute brought by the petitioner.
However, in the end, I am humbly of the view that the presence of subsection (3) of section (1) of the Ordinance, no longer warran6 the determination of a question whether an institution or enterprise is an industry or not for the purposes of the applicability of the Ordinance to arty employee or class of employees and any such discussion may not be necessary beyond the scope of the said subsection after the enforcement of the Ordinance. The petition is, therefore, dismissed.
The file may be consigned. revisions by the competent authorities. Therefore, it is advisable to consult the official sources or legal professionals for the most up-to-date and accurate information.