Can’t sack worker verbally: SC

Top court upholds FST decision to reinstate employee

The Supreme Court has ruled that there is no provision under the labour or service laws permitting the employer to sack a worker verbally without a written order containing the explicit reasons or cause of termination.

"Even in the case of termination ... [and] for disciplinary proceedings on account of misconduct, obviously [a] separate procedure is laid down which accentuates the issuance of [a] show cause notice, holding [an] inquiry unless dispensed with by the competent authority considering all attending circumstances of the case and after personal hearing, appropriate action may be taken in accordance with the law,” read a four-pages judgment authored by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar.

A three-judge bench of the apex court, led by Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed, was hearing an appeal filed by the chairman of the Agriculture Policy Institute, Ministry of National Food Security and Research against the Federal Service Tribunal’s (FST) decision on the reinstatement of an employee.

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The bench posed a question as whether the services of the employee could be terminated verbally or not.

The order read that the termination of service by a verbal order was alien to the labour and service laws of this country and also against the principle of good governance, which is a process of gauging whether the government, its departments and authorities were conducting their affairs lawfully and performing their duties honestly, conscientiously and transparently including their process of decision making in accordance with rules and regulations.

"The verbal termination order was illegal hence the learned Tribunal rightly set aside the termination order with the directions to the petitioners to reinstate the respondent No 1 in service with back benefits and also dealt with the intervening period aptly," the verdict read.

"The verbal termination order is otherwise against the principle of natural justice which turn of phrase was originated from the Roman word ‘Jus Naturale’, which means principles and moralities of natural law, justice, equity, and good conscience that, is fervently and exuberantly founded in the judicial conscience," it added.

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The order added that it was an elementary rule of law that before taking any adverse action, the affected party must be given a fair opportunity to respond and defend the action.

"This principle does not lay down any differentiation or inequality between a quasi-judicial function and or an administrative function/action for applying evenly and uniformly to secure justice and prevent miscarriage of justice. Before taking any punitive or adverse action, putting to end the services of any employee/workman or civil servant, the precept of fairness and reasonableness commands that an evenhanded opportunity to put forth the defence should be afforded."

The court said that due to negligent and unprofessional practice or conduct of issuing verbal termination orders of service, the action of the employer was often defeated and nonsuited in the court of law without touching the merits of the case despite having sometimes valid grounds for termination of service.

“Therefore, in order to avoid such anomalies and eventualities, even in the case of contractual or temporary engagements, the employees should be issued appointment letters in writing with the terms and conditions of engagement and in the case of termination, explicit reasons of termination should be assigned,” it added.

The court dismissed the department’s petition against the reinstatement of its employee.