1. TANVIR AHMED KHAN, J.--Leave to appeal is sought against the judgment dated 5-12-2001 passed by the Punjab Service Tribunal, Lahore (hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal), whereby the appeals tiled by the petitioners against the termination of their services were accepted. However, the intervening period was ordered to be treated as extraordinary leave.
2. This matter was earlier assailed through Civil Petitions Nos.403-L to 425-L of 2002 by Sher Muhammad Shehzad and others against the same impugned judgment. This Court.Through its judgment z dated 3-5-2002. Accepted the plea raised therein by the aggrieved persons and converted all the above petitions into appeals and allowed the same by granting them back benefits. The present petitioners were also party in the aforesaid judgment of the Tribunal and were aggrieved of the same. However, they have now filed the instant petitions with a delay of 146 days.
3. ' The departmental representative, who has appeared today on Court notice, has only opposed the present petitions on the ground of limitation.
4. We have given our anxious consideration to the facts and circumstances of the present case. This Court had already given judgment on 3-5-2002 in the aforesaid petitions, subject-matter of which was the same as involved in these petitions, and granted, back-benefits to those employees in the above petitions. We are of the view that the department should have been magnanimous enough to have allowed the said benefit to the present petitioners as well without approaching this Court for which they have incurred colossal expenditure by tiling these petitions. It is pertinent to mention over here that earlier exception was taken to this very judgment by the functionaries of the respondent-department against the reinstatement order passed by the Tribunal through Civil Petitions Nos.490-L. 555-L to 587-L of 2002, all which were dismissed by this Court through judgment dated 26-4-2002.
5. As far as delay in tiling these petitions is concerned, we are of the view that in the circumstances of this case when the same relief has been granted earlier by this Court to the other employees of the same department out of this very impugned judgment, the delay in this matter shall not come in the way of the present petitioners for dispensation of complete and substantial justice who were sailing in the same boat.
6. Resultantly. For what have been stated above, the instant petitions are convened into appeals and the petitioners are allowed all the back benefits. However, there will be no order as to costs.