Supreme Court for expeditious disposal of labour cases

The top court has called for serious efforts to put in place early and expeditious disposal of labour cases by the Labour Courts, Labour Appellate Tribunals, and the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC), both at original and appellate stage.

"The proceedings before the Labour Court/NIRC cannot be equated with civil suit proceedings in civil courts in the stricto sensu along with all the ramifications or intricacies of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908," says 10-page judgment authored by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazahar while hearing a case which was filed in Labour Court in 1997.

The case was decided on October 27, 2001. Then the Punjab Appellate Tribunal decided the appeal on April 29, 2002; thereafter, the Lahore High Court in the end decided the writ petition on April 27, 2016 which was filed in 2002.

"It is quite significant to note that Section 25-A of the repealed IRO 1969, laid much emphasis on the principle that the Labour Court should decide the grievance petition within seven days from the date of the matter being brought before it as if such matter were an industrial dispute," read the the judgement.

"What is more, the Industrial Relations Act, 2012, again recapitulated that for the decision in the individual grievance petition, if the employer fails to communicate a decision within the period specified or if the worker is dissatisfied with such decision, the worker or the shop steward may take the matter to his collective bargaining agent or to the Commission or, as the case may be, the collective bargaining agent may take the matter to the Commission, and where the matter is taken to the Commission, it shall give a decision within seven days from the date of the matter being brought before it as if such matter were an industrial dispute. What it demonstrates is that the legislature included a provision even in the 2012 Act stipulating that matters should be decided within seven days.

"Moreover, while the Punjab Industrial Relations Act, 2010, does not explicitly state seven days, it has fixed a period of ninety days from the date of the matter being brought before it as if such matter was an industrial dispute. In the same analogy, the Sindh Industrial Relations Act, 2013, is not dissimilar but it also encompasses a timetable for making a decision within ninety days.

"Whereas in the Baluchistan Industrial Relations Act, 2010, and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Industrial Relations Act, 2010, the lawmakers of both the provinces adopted the previous timeline as embodied in the repealed IRO 1969 with the same language that where the matter is taken to the Labour Court, it shall give a decision within seven days from the date of the matter being brought before it as if such matter were an industrial dispute."