1. AWARD MUSHTAQ HUSSAIN MUNIR (CHAN).-Muhammad Saleem was a Conductor in the Lahore Omni Bus Service, .Lahore. He was dismissed by the Additional District Manager with effect from 3-12-196ti. He has come up to this Court by way of an application under section 38 of .the West Pakistan Industrial Disputes Ordinance, 1968, with a prayer that he may be re--instated with full benefits.
2. The reply filed by the respondent shows, that the petitioner was dismissed for dishonesty and temporary embezzlement of the revenue of Road Transport Corporation after an' independent domestic enquiry was held against him.
3. I need not go into the charges levelled against the petitioner and need not decide, as to whether any enquiry was held against him and if so, it was fair or impartial, for the simple reason, that the application being belated, deserves to be dismis--sed. It was filed in this Court on the 5th of August 1968, about a year and eight months after the dismissal.
4. Parties were allowed to adduce evidence in order to find out, as to whether the petitioner could give any plausible reason, as to why he filed his application after such a long time. The petitioner himself came into the witness-box and the respondent examined two witnesses in rebuttal. The admitted facts, so far as the aforesaid question is concerned are, that the petitioner filed an appeal to the Traffic Manager on the 21st of January 1967. It was rejected as, being time-barred.
5. Exh. R.1, is the order, which was communicated to the petitioner on the 26th of April 1967. The evidence reveals that the limitation for filing departmental appeal is one month and, therefore, unques--tionably the order of the Tragic Manager dismissing the appeal as time-barred was correct. The petitioner, thereafter filed revision application on the 10th of May 1967, when it was pointed out by the office, that the previous appeal had been dismissed without hearing the petitioner. It was thus decided by the Department to hear the revision petition as an appeal and a notice Exh. R. 1 dated the 8th of September, 1967 was sent to the petitioner- to appear before the Traffic Manager, Road Transport Corporation at Transport House, Lahore on 30-9-1967 at 7 a.m. Exh.
6. R.4 is the office-sheet, which shows in detail, how the appeal of the appellant was dealt with. At `X' is the order of the appellate authority. It runs thus:-- "Appellant heard. He has admitted that he had kept used tickets on his person. This is an offence.
7. His past record is bad. I, therefore; reject the appeal."
8. This order is dated the 3rd of October 1967. The petitioner denied receipt of notice Exh. R.
1. However, there is the evidence of Ishtiaq Hussain; Incharge Appeal Branch, of the Road Transport Corporation, Headquarters Office, R. W. 1, to the effect, that the appeal was disposed of after giving personal hearing to the petitioner by the Traffic Manager on :0-9- 1967. The writing at `X' on the back of Exh.R.4 has been proved by Kallu Khan to be in the hand of Mr. S. M. Iqbal, the then Traffic Manager. I have, therefore, no reason to hold; that the petitioner was not, beard and the order was passed behind his back. Kallu Khan depcsed, that in cases where the appellants are heard, the orders are invariably announced to them there', and then and formal information is sent to them later on., ft is significant, that the witnesses produced by the respondent were not cross-examined by the Representative of the petitioner. I have, therefore, do reason to believe, that the aforesaid course was not adopted in the case of the appeal of the petitioner. However, formal order of the rejection of the appeal preferred by the petitioner, which is Exh.R.2, was sent to him by post on 4-10- 1967. The petitioner with respect to this order deposed:-- "I received its reply, but it was lost by my brother. I did not see it."
9. This statement definitely is incorrect. When he received the reply, there is no reason, why he should not have seen it before passing it on to his brother. Therefore, if he did not know the order of the rejection of appeal on 30-9-1967, he definitely came to know of it, when he received copy of the letter Exh. R.
2. This letter shows that the appeal was decided after giving an opportunity to the petitioner of being heard. Even if we give concession to the petitioner up to the dismissal of this appeal, he his still to explain, as to why, he took no action thereafter for another eight months.
10. It is no doubt true that the petitioner end an application to the Chairman, R. T. C. on 10-4-1967 but that application is of no consequence, because if he knew in October 1967, that His appeal had been dismissed he should have filed- revision with in one month to the Chairman. Assuming that the petitioner had not seen letter, Exh. R. 2, he should have known, that some action must have been taken on his appeal after he had been heard on 30-9-1967. It should have put him on enquiry.
11. He should have tried to find out the fate of his appeal. Taking all these facts into consideration, I am of the confirmed opinion, that the petitioner' intentionally kept quiet for a long time and probably would not have made any application -to the Chairman, R. T. C. or to this Court, until I had given decision in the case of Mohd. Rafiq v. Road Transport Corporation, Lahore (1) decided on 22-1-1963 in which I had held that the Additional District Managers were not competent to dismiss the workmen of the Road Transport Corporation. By giving the last-mentioned application to the Chairman, R. T. C. the idea of the petitioner was, that he would thereby explain the delay in coming to this Court.
12. There is a string of authority for the proposition, that belated applications under section 31 of the Old and 38 of the New Ordinance should not be encouraged. Although the law nowhere provides the period of limitation for filing such applications, it assumes, that an aggrieved person would seek his remedy with promptness and diligence. If such applications are encouraged, the result would be disasterous. When aril employee is dismissed by an Administration, his post would not be kept vacant for a long time, . to give him an opportunity to get a decision in his favour. It might be kept vacant for a reasonable period or a temporary appointment may be made in his place, so that if he is re-instated there is no frustration, in the mind of the outgoing employee. Equity demands, therefore, that the aggrieved person must be prompt in taking action. It would, therefore, be quite fair, that when an aggrieved person sleeps over his rights and wakes up after a long time, he should not be encouraged to displace the person, who is recruited in his place.
13. Some of the cases in which belated applications were disallowed are:--
(1) Manzoor Hussain v. Road Transport Board, Rawalpindi 1963 PLC 402, decided by Mr. M. Khurshid Zaman (retired Judge of the High Court), Chairman, Industrial Court, West Pakistan, Lahore).
14. He dismissed applications preferred by dismissed employees after five months.
(2) Muqeem Beg v. Road Transport Corporation, Lahore 1968 PLC 155, decided by Mr. Fazli Khaliq Khau, Chairman of the Industrial Court, Karachi.
15. In this case delay of six months was not condoned.
(3) Malik Amanullah Khan v. District Manager, Government Transport Service 1968 PLC 164, decided by Mr. FazliKhaliq Khan Chairman, West Pakistan Industrial Court, Karachi.
16. Delay of 7 1/2 months was not condoned.
17. I have myself taken the aforesaid view in a number of cases.
18. For the aforestated reasons, therefore, I hold that the instant a application is very much belated and deserves to be dismissed l on this ground alone. The petitioner has given no cogent reason, as to why, I should re-open his case after lapse of such a long time and decide, as to whether his dismissal was or was, not justified. The application is thus dismissed.