1. ' By this common judgment I propose to dispose of all the above listed Constitutional petitions as they involve common questions of facts and law and are directed against identical orders passed by the respondent No,2 (authority under Payment of Wages Act/Commissioner Workmen's Compensation at Hyderabad) and respondent No,3 (Presiding Officer Labour Court No,6 Hyderabad), whereby former allowed the applications under section 15 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 (hereinafter referred to as Act of 1936, filed by the private respondent(s) and later dismissed the appeals against such orders filed by the petitioners.
2. ' Brief facts relevant for the disposal of these petitions are that the private respondents, who were employees of the petitioners, filed their respective applications under section 15 of the Act of 1936 before the respondent No,2, agitating their grievance about illegal deduction in their wages/allowances by the petitioners and claimed its refund.
3. ' The petitioners in their reply statement controverted these allegations and submitted that the private respondents were civil servants and governed by Civil Servants Act, the salaries and allowances paid to them were in accordance with their entitlement and scale and, thus, their applications under section 15 of the Act of 1936 were not maintainable and that the respondent No,2 had no jurisdiction in the matter.
4. ' During the course of proceedings before respondent No,2. Issues with regard to jurisdiction of the Court, maintainability of the application and the relief claimed by the private respondents were framed and after recording of evidence of the parties respondent No,2 decided all these issues in favour of private respondents allowed their applications and consequently ordered payment of respondents' claim with directions to deposit the said amount in the Court within thirty days.
5. ' Against such orders of respondent No,2, the petitioners filed appeals under section 17 of the Act of 1936, mainly urging the ground of lack of jurisdiction of respondent No,2. These appeals when filed by the petitioners before respondent No,3 were not only presented beyond the prescribed period of limitation of thirty days as provided under section 17 of the Act of 1936 but the same were also not accompanied with a certificate of deposit of amount as required under the proviso to section 17 (1)
(a) of the Act of 1936. Considering these legal deficiencies in the appeals as fatal the respondent No,3 dismissed all these appeals on the grounds being time-barred and not maintainable for want of deposit certificates.
6. ' I have heard Mr. Mian Khan Malik, learned Additional Adv ocateGeneral for the petitioners and M/s. Fasahat Hussain Rizvi and Mehmood Hussain Siddiqui appearing for the private respondents in many petitions. The official respondents Nos,2 and 3, however, remained unrepresented.
7. ' The learned Additional Advocate-General while arguing the case of the petitioners frankly admitted that the appeals preferred before respondent No,3 were time-barred and also compliance of the proviso to section 17(1)(a) of the Act of 1936 was not made as the amount which was to be deposited in terms of the orders of respondent No,2 was not deposited even uptil the time of passing of the impugned orders by the respondent No,3. However, to meet this situation the learned A.A.-G. Contended that the delay in filing of appeals was caused due to departmental correspondence and delay in sanction from the Government while non-fulfillment of the requirement of proviso to section 17(1)(a) of the Act of 1936 was due to the non-availability of funds with the petitioners' Department. Arguing the facts of the case learned A.A.-G. Contended that the private respondents in all these petitions were serving on "work charged basis" with the petitioners organization which is attached with the Provincial Government and, therefore, they being civil servants were not entitled to invoke the jurisdiction of respondent No,2 by filing their applications under section 15 of the Act of 1936. In support of .His contentions, learned counsel placed his reliance on the following case law: "(a) Government of Balochistan, Livestock Department v. Livestock Employees Union, Balochistan and two others (1993 PLC 13),
(b) Agriculture Workers' Union, Balochistan v. The Registrar of Trade Unions, Balochistan, Quetta and others (1997 SCM R 66) and
(c) Employees' Old Age Benefit Institution v. National Industrial Relations Commission and others (1988 SCM R 765).
8. ' On the other hand, Mr. Fasahat Hussain Rizvi, learned counsel for the private respondents in several petitions, strongly controverted these submissions and argued that for the purpose of limitation an autonomous body, corporation or Government Department cannot claim any special treatment and, therefore, the ground of correspondence and delay in sanction cannot be considered as a valid ground for condonation of delay in filing of these appeals before respondent No,3. Referring to the non-filing of certificate of deposit alongwith the memo. Of appeal, learned counsel argued that it is an admitted position that not only deposit of amount as contemplated under section 17 of the Act of 1936 was not made by the petitioners at the time of filing of the appeals but even at the time of passing of impugned orders by the respondent No,3 such compliance was not made and, thus, all the appeals were rightly dismissed by respondent No,3, being not maintainable. Lastly the learned counsel argued that the status of a workman working on work charged basis has already been examined by the apex Court in the case of Executive Engineer, Central Civil Division Pak (PWD) Quetta v. Abdul Aziz and others (1996 PLC 385) and a perusal of this judgment furnishes a complete reply to the contention raised by the learned A.A.-G.
9. In this regard. Mr. Rizvi further referred to a numbei of unreported judgments of this Court passed in C.P. Nos, S-116/90, 37/84, 87 and 88/85, 54 and 57/84, 8/90, 37/86, 12,13 and 14 of 1986 and C.P.
10. Nos,S-21 and 22 of 1986, to show that other identical petitions filed by the petitioners, wherein similar legal and factual contentions were raised by the learned A.A.-G., have already been dismissed by this Court.
11. ' Mr. Mahmood Hussain Siddiqui representating some other private respondents in these petitions adopted the arguments of Mr. Rizvi with this addition that during the pendency of these petitions most of the private respondents have either died or retired or have left the job of the petitioners but no steps have been taken by the petitioners to either bring the legal heirs of deceased respondents on record or to submit the fresh addresses or whereabouts of such other private respondents. In this context the learned counsel referred to the statement of learned Additional Advocate-General dated 29-11-1999 and its Annexures A, B and C which are three lists of the private respondents (Annexure "A" mentioning names of twenty-one private respondents who are still in service with petitioners, Annexure "B" mentioning names of eighty private respondents who have already retired and Annexure "C" giving the names of forty-two private respondents who have expired), and that against the private respondents who have already expired or retired it will be a mere exercise in futility to proceed with these petitions.
12. ' Mr. -Mian Khan Malik, in his reply arguments did not controvert the facts as stated by Mr. Siddiqui and he was also unable to make any material distinction in the present petitions and the other petitions which have already been dismissed by this Court by its judgments in the above referred petitions.
13. ' I have considered the arguments advanced by the learned counsel for the parties and have, perused the case record. In all these petitions it is an admitted position that the appeals filed by the petitioners before respondent No,3 were not only time-barred but also not accompanied with the deposit certificate as required under the law. The arguments of the learned counsel that due to departmental correspondence and delay in sanction, delay in filing of appeals was caused and that due to the non-availability of funds the deposit of amount could not be made at the time of filing of appeals or even thereafter has no force as even if these pleas are accepted as correct the same do not furnish a sufficient cause either for condonation of delay in filing of appeals or for non-deposit of amount and non-filing of deposit certificate as required under section 17(1)(a) of the Act 1936.'If any case law is needed on these points, reference may be made to the case of Federation of Pakistan v. Niaz Ahmad (1997 SCM R 959) wherein the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan referring to another case reported as 1981 SCM R 37 has observed as follows: "This Court has repeatedly laid down that so far as the limitation is concerned, the Government cannot claim to be treated in any manner differently from an ordinary litigant. In fact, the Government enjoys unusual facilities for the preparation and conduct of their cases and its resources are much larger than those possessed by ordinary litigants, if in spite of these facilities the Government cannot comply' with the requirement of the law of limitation, then it is for it to take steps to have that law. It was further observed in the afore-noted case that according to the law, each day's delay must properly and satisfactorily be explained and the excuse that the matter got delayed because of its having remained under examination at different departmental levels is never a valid ground for condonation of delay."
14. ' Reference may also be made to the case of Ahmad Spinning Mills Ltd. v. Authority and others (1990 PLC 26) wherein a learned Single Judge of this Court while examining the effect of non- deposit of amount as required under section 17 of the Act of 1936 has observed as follows:-- "Intention of the Legislature in enacting section 17 of the Payment of Wages Act is very clear. It seems that the Legislature intended the amount covered by an order under section 15 of said Act to be deposited in the Labour Court before it entertained an appeal against such an order. Such a provision cannot be allowed to be circumvented. Moreover, purpose of Article 199 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan does not appear to be to nullify the effect of a legislative provision or to make ineffective a statutory provisions." '
15. ' Also see: unreported judgment in the case of Executive Engineer Mechanical Division, Gudo Barrage Sukkur v. Rahim Bux and 46 others (C.P. No,163/1984).
16. ' Reverting to the factual contention raised by the learned Additional Advocate-General it may be observed that the question of status of a workman working on work charged basis in an organization attached with the Provincial Government has been discussed at length by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan in the case of Executive Engineer, Central Civil Division Pak. (PWD)
17. Quetta v. Abdul Aziz and others (1996 PLC 385). In view of the dictum laid down in this case, the other contention of the learned Addl. A.-G. Has also no force.
18. ' In the facts and circumstances of these petitions, the case law referred by the learned Additional Advocate-General is also distinguishable and not applicable to these petitions.
19. ' Besides I have also perused the judgment in C.P. No,S.116 of 1990 and other petitions referred by the learned counsel for the private respondents and seen that similar contentions raised in these petitions have already been examined, discussed and rejected by this Court. I find no valid reason to form a different view in these petitions.
20. For the preceding reasons, these petitions merit dismissal and the I same are accordingly dismissed.
21. ' Above are the reasons for the short order dated 2-12-1999.