1. On 14October, 1975 the petitioner Zar Khan, 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 30September, 1976 ordered the re-instatement of the petitioner. The respondent, however, went in appeal against the decision of this Court and his Lordship, the Chairman of the 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 con--fined to the fact that whether grievance notice under section 25-A of the I. R. O. has been served by the petitioner on the respondent or not.
2. In para No. 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 No. 5 has not given any, reply to the allegations raised in para 5 of the petition.
3. The respondent has, however, contended in para. 2 of its written statement that the petitioner had not served a notice under section 25-A of the I. R. O. rind as such the petition was not maintainable.
4. 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 allegation of fact in the plaint must be taken to be admitted if it is not denied specifically. There is no doubt that in para. 5 of the written statement the allegations raised in para. 5 of the petition have riot been denied. In the present case the petitioner closed histh th evidence on 8th July, 1976. On 30.h July, 1976 the learned counsel for the respondent preferred an application. In this application he listed the following three objections:-
(1) That the petitioner was not 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 the petitioner on the respondent.
5. At the concluding end of this application the respondent prayed that the above objections may kindly be added to the written statement of the respon--dent. This application was rejected by this Court vide its order dated 30th July, 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, I. R.
6. O., was not contained in its written statement. It appears that when this Court did not give a finding with respect to the service of this notice in its final order, dated 30th September, 1976, it was because this point in a way had already stood determined because of the order, dated 30th July, 1976. It may be further mentioned that in the 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, copy of the notice is Exh. P. W. 1/7. In the I. R. O., there is no specific mode prescribed for the service of the grievance notice and the petitioner had stated that he had given the original of Exh. P. W. 1/7 by hand to the employer but the latter refused to give him any receipt. The respondent has produced only one witness, namely, Mr. Abdul Qadir, Assistant Vice-President who stated that the petitioner had not given any notice. In view of the facts that the petitioner in his petition in para 5 of the petition had clearly stated that he had served a grievance notice on the respondent and the fact that the respondent had not denied this allegation in para. 6 of the written statement plus the fact that the respondent had requested this Court to allow it to add this objection to its written statement and rejection of this application vide the order, dated 30th July, 1976. I am of the view that the petitioner has served the grievance notice on the, respondent as required by law. It may further be mentioned that the labour laws are biased in favour of the workers and the Labour Courts are supposed to interpret law in a way favourable to a worker. It is, therefore, held that the petition is maintainable and the grievance notice has properly been served on the respondent.