WORKERS’ UNION Versus RAFIQ & Co.

ORDER

1. This matter falls under section 6 of the Essential Services Act. The petitioners have demanded 'Eid Bonus' for the workers pertaining to the Ramzan Eid, falling in the month of September, 1975. The claim of the petitioners is based on the assertion that the respondents used to pay such bonus to their workers for every Ramzan Eid. They have filed affidavit of their witness Abdul-Aziz in support of this contention. The respondents cross-examined the witness.

2. The petitioner's claim for "Eid bonus" is obviously based on a custom which is said to be prevailing in the respondent-Company. In order to establish valid claim for customary bonus, it is necessary that the custom should be anci ent, reasonable, and certain. The rate at which the bonus is paid should also be uniform and no pre-condition should be attached for payment thereof. In the present case, first of all no evidence has been led by the petitioners with In the regard to the length of time to prove the first requisite of the alleged custom, that is its antiquity. The petitioners have simply asserted that bonus was being paid to them every year in the month of Ramzan but they have failed to pinpoint the actual time from which the practice started. Even if this time is computed from the 5 ear the respondent-Company came into existence, even then the petitioners have failed to establish a claim for customary bonus, because according to their witness, Abdul Aziz, the respondent-Company into existence in December, 1971 and actually started functioning from amounts to four years, came January, 1972. the period upto 1975, which at the most is very short to establish a custom. Moreover, no evidence has been produced to establish even uniformity of payment because the amount alleged to have been paid to the workers, has not been mentioned.

3. Under the circumstances the petitioners have completely failed to establish any claim for customary bonds and as such the petition stands dismissed.

4. Petition dismissed.