This Constitutional Petition is directed against a decision given by a Labour Court at Karachi on 29- 8-1975, whereby it upheld the order of a Junior Labour Court directing that respondent No. 1 be re- instated in the service of the petitioner with full back benefits. The said order was passed on an application filed by respondent No. l under section 25-A of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969, claiming that he was a workman of the petitioner herein and that his services were wrongfully terminated with effect from 21-11-1974 without any charge-sheet or even a letter of termina-- petition of service. Prior to filing this application respondent No. I had, by his letter dated 19-12-1974, brought his grievance of unwarranted termination of service to the notice of the petitioner, but the latter did not afford him any redress on the ground that he had never been in the service of the petitioner.
2. 'Mr. Hassan A. Sheikh, the learned counsel of the petitioner, has assailed the order of the Junior Labour Court and the decision of the Labour Court on the grounds that they are based on no evidence, misreading of evidence and drawing of unwarranted and unjustified conclusions, which circumstances affect the very jurisdiction of the above Courts. In order to examine these contentions it is necessary to see on what evidence the finding of the Labour Court is based that Respondent No. 1 continued to be in the employ of the petitioner up to 21-11-1914 and his services had been illegally terminated. There were 3. Main pieces of evidence on which the finding of the two Labour Courts is based. The first of course is the evidence of respondent No. 1, who claimed that he had been in the service of the petitioner for the past 10 or 11 years and that his services had been wrongly terminated by the petitioner with affect from 21-11-1974. The next piece of evidence relied upon by the Labour Courts were some production cards and production slips on the letter-bead of the petitioner firm, which mention the name of respondent No. 1. It may, however, be mentioned that the production cards and slips are of the year prior to 1968. Lastly, the two Labour Courts drew an adverse inference against the petitioner from the evidence of Mr. Abdul Rauf, Director of the petitioner firm, because though he took up the plea that no Zari workers were employed in his mills excepting one Mst. Hanifa, there was evidence to show that two other ladies, namely, Rehana and Khairun Nissa were employed by the petitioner Mills as Zari workers and they were paid their dues by the petitioner firm through the intervention of Mr. Mir Muhammad, Labour Officer.
3. In my respectful opinion the contentions of the learned counsel for the petitioner have considerable force. Though respondent No. 1 claimed to have been in the service of the petitioner firm for 10 or 11 years, he was neither able to produce his letter of appointment nor his Holiday book or identity card. No satisfactory explanation was offered by him for failing to produce such record and the only plea taken by him was that he was not given any such card book or letter. Again if respondent No. 1 had been of the petitioner firm, he must have been signing the attendance a worker register, but he admitted that he was not aware if his attendance was marked on any register. The witness also admitted that the benefits under the settlement with the Union were not given to him. If respondent No. 1 was a worker of the petitioner, he would not have remained silent if these benefits which admittedly were being enjoyed by other workers of the petitioner, had been denied to him.
4. So far as the production cards and slips are concerned, the production cards are admittedly of the year 1961 while the production slips are said to be of the years 1965 and 1967. Furthermore, respondent No. 1, in his evidence has stated that he was working under one Mohtaj, who was his Supervisor. This Mohtaj has been examined and he denied that respondent No. I was working under him as an employee of the petitioner. Even if reliance is placed on the production cards and slips, they at best tend to show that respondent No. 1 was in the employ of the petitioner Mills, up to 1967.
No inference therefrom can legitimately be drawn that be continued to be in the employ of the petitioner after 1961 and particularly up to 1974, as claimed by him.
5. So far as the evidence of Mr. Abdul Rauf is concerned, the fact that he has made contradictory statements, only shows that he is an unreliable witness, but no inference could be drawn that respondent No. 1 continued to be in the employ of the petitioner Mills after 1967. ,
6. Although evidence was led before the Labour Courts, no witness has stated that respondent No. I was in the service of the petitioner and there is only the word of respondent No. 1 in this behalf, together with the circum--stantial evidence regarding the production card of 1961 and the production silps up to 1967. If respondent No. l had continued to be in the service of the petitioner after 1967, he should have been at least in possession of produc--e-cards and slips after that date, but from the fact that he did not produce any such card or slips, the reasonable inference to be drawn is that he ceased to be in the service of the petitioner, even if earlier he had been in such service. It may also be pointed out that under the Employment (Record of Services) Act, 1951, the respondent No. 1 should have had a Service Book if he was in employ of the petitioner. Furthermore, his name should have been borne on the list of employees required to be prepared under section 22 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969, for the purposes of electing the Collective Bargaining Agent. However, respondent No. 1 had neither a Service Book nor his name was borne on any such list. All these circumstances thus clearly militate against the finding of the Labour Courts that there was relationship of employer and employee between the petitioner and respondent No. 1 up to 1974.
7. No doubt, in the exercise of its constitutional jurisdiction, a Court will not interfere with the finding of fact recorded by a Tribunal of a competent jurisdiction and the scope of interference by the High Court is limited to the enquiry whether the Tribunal has in doing the act objected to or passing the impugned order acted in accordance with law, but as observed by Muhammad Yaqoob A.I, J. (as he then was) in Rahim Shah v. Chief Election Commissioner (PLD 1973 SC 24). "Cases of no evidence, bad faith, misdirec--petition or failure to follow judicial procedure, etc. Are treated as acts done without lawful authority and vitiate the acts done or proceedings undertaken by the Tribunal on this ground. Where the High Court is of opinion that there is no evidence proper to be considered by the inferior Tribunal in support of some point material to the conviction or order, certierari will be granted". A similar view was taken by their Lordships of the Supreme Court m Chief Land Commissioner v. Nazar Hussain (1975 SCMR 352). In that case, it was contended by the learned counsel appearing in support of the petition before the Supreme Court that the High Court had no jurisdiction to interfere with the order of the Chief Land Commissioner in its writ jurisdiction and that a mere erroneous decision could not be struck down in the certiorari jurisdiction. This contention was repelled by Hamoodur Rehman, C. J. With the observation "Under the provisions of that Constitution (1962 Constitution), the High Court could interfere with the orders of the Chief Land Commissioner, if they were based on misreading of evidence or suffer from any error of law apparent on the face of the record".
8. Mr. Hameed Siddiqui, the learned counsel for respondent No. 1, strongly supported the orders of the Labour Courts and submitted that this Court could not interfere with the finding of the Labour Courts that there did exist relationship of emplo3er and employee between the parties. In support of his contention he relied upon a number of authorities of which it appears to be necessary to notice only two which are relevant. The first of these is Sethi Straw Board Limited v. Punjab Labour Court (1976 PLC 901). In that case it was held that the finding of fact reached by the Labour Courts that the respondent fell within the definition of a workman, which finding was in accordance with the evidence on record, was not open to interference in the constitutional jurisdiction of the High Court. I am in respectful agreement with this observation, but this decision is of no assistance to the learned counsel for the respondent as in the reported case the finding was based on tangible evidence, whereas the finding in the present case is based on misreading of evidence and no evidence.
9. The learned counsel for respondent No. I also relied upon the decision in Asghar Khan v Second Labour Court (PLJ 1975 Kar. 36). In that case it was held that the scope of writ jurisdiction does not extend to interfering with the finding of fact by the Labour Courts, namely, whether the petitioner was not a workman but an employee. The judgment shows that the decision of the Labour Court was not interfered with by the High Court as the Tribunal had applies the correct criteria and had sufficient evidence before him to come to the finding that the petitioner was not a workman. This judgment is thus equally unhelpful to respondent No. 1.
10. As, in my respectful view, the finding of the Labour Courts is, based on no evidence and also on misreading of evidence there was a jurisdic--tional error on their part and consequently their decision cannot be upheld. R I would accordingly hold that there was no material before the Labour Courts to come to the finding that respondent. No. I was a workman in the employ of the petitioner at the relevant time and would, therefore, allow the petition with costs.