DIVISIONAL PERSONAL OFFICER, PAKISTAN RAILWAYS, LAHORE vs CHAIRMAN, PUNJAB LABOUR APPELLATE ;TRIBUNAL, LAHORE and 2 others

ORDER

1. ' The petitioner, feeling aggrieved, by the order passed by respondent No.1 dated 23-4-1986 upholding the order of the trial Court, dated 26-10-1985, has instituted the present petition.

2. ' Brief facts of the case are that respondent No.3 was initially appointed as Challandar, later on was promoted on ad hoc basis to the rank of work Mistri, which post he continued to hold for a period of 5/6 years, but was reverted to his substantive post on 29-8-1984. Feeling aggrieved by the order of reversion, he moved a petition under section 25-A of the Industial Relations Ordinance, 1969 before respondent No.2 which was accepted. The petitioner preferred an appeal against that order before respondent No.1, which was not signed by the petitioner/appellant; however, it did bear signatures of the learned counsel but at the relevant point of time, the learned counsel had no power of attorney executed in his favour. The learned Appellate Tribunal held that in the eye of law, no appeal was competently instituted within time and as a result whereof, vested right had been created in favour of the other party. On this account the appeal was dismissed. Hence the present petition.

3. ' This writ petition is dated 12-1-1987 whereas, the impugned order was passed on 23-4-1986 i.e. After a delay of over 10 months. I asked the learned counsel for petitioner if he can explain it; to which he frankly conceded that there is no explanation whatsoever except the negligence of the department.

4. ' On merits, the learned counsel for petitioner contends that discrepancy pointed out by the learned Appellate Tribunal is only an irregularity and not an illegality. I am of the opinion that this is not a case of irregularity but matter which goes to the competency and maintainability of the appeal. No appeal was filed within time as contemplated by law and due to gross negligence of petitioner, vested right had been created in favour of respondent No. 3.

5. ' There is another interesting feature of the petition. The petition is supported by the affidavit sworn by the learned counsel for petitioner, which does not bear any date and states that nothing has been concealed from this Court. I wonder how the learned counsel can categorically make a statement of this nature on oath, because he is not expected to know as to what had transpired between respondent and petitioner or within the office of petitioner during litigation. This practice is not appreciated, to say the least.

6. ' There is yet another aspect of the matter. I have carefully gone through the special power of attorney whereby the learned counsel for petitioner has been constituted to represent this case. It only authorises the learned counsel to do the specified acts stipulated therein, and towards the tail end, it is mentioned that anything done beyond or in contravention of this power of attorney, would be void and not binding on petitioner. A perusal of the act authorised under the said special power of attorney reveal that swearing of the affidavit is not within the competence of the learned counsel; consequently, the principle of expressio unius st exclusio alterius is fully attracted to the facts of the present case. This makes the petition void, vis-a-vis the petitioner.

7. ' In this view of the above, the petition does not merit any interference in constitutional jurisdiction; accordingly this petition is dismissed in limine.