ZAHIR ULLAH and 13 others vs CHAIRMAN, WAPDA, LAHORE and others

1. ' SAIDUZZAMAN SIDDIQUI, C.J.---The above mentioned 27 civil appeals were dismissed by the Hon'ble Federal Service Tribunal on the ground that the appeals filed by the appellants before the Tribunal were not maintainable as the appellants were not covered by the definition of "civil servant" as given in section 2(b) of Civil Servants Act, 1973 (hereinafter to be referred as 'the Act'). In arriving at the above conclusion, the learned Tribunal held that by force of section 2-A of Service Tribunals Act, 1973, the employees of any authority, corporation, body or organization established by or under a Federal law or which is owned or controlled by the Federal Government or in which the Federal Government has a controlling share of interest, were declared civil servant and in service of Pakistan, and therefore, the definition given in section 2(b) of the Act, which excluded from its purview a workman as defined in the Factories Act or Workmens's Compensation Act or a civil servant employed on contract, would be applicable to the cases of the appellants who were employed in the Corporation on contract basis or were a workman.

2. The above view taken by the learned Tribunal does not appear to be correct as section 2-A which was inserted in the Service Tribunals Act, 1973, by its own force, created a class of Government servants by fiction, for the purpose of allowing them to avail remedy of appeal before the learned Service Tribunal. Section 2-A ibid while providing that the service under any authority, corporation, body or organization established by or under a Federal law or which is owned or controlled by the Federal Government or in which the Federal Government has a controlling share of interest is declared to be the service of Pakistan and every person holding a post under such corporation or organization shall be deemed to be a civil servant for the purpose of Service Tribunals Act, does not make any differentiation between the employees working in such organization either as regular employees or contract employees or workmen. We are, therefore, of the view that as the appellants were covered by the provisions of section 2-A for the purposes of availing remedy before the Service Tribunal. The fact that they were employed in the organization/ corporation on contract basis, could not disentitle them to the remedy of appeal which became available to them on account of incorporation of section 2-A in the Service Tribunals Act, 1973 . Accordingly, the above appeals are allowed, the order of the learned Service Tribunal is set aside and the cases are remanded to the learned Service Tribunal with the direction to decide the same afresh in the light of above observations. There will, however, be no order as to costs.