The pending cases of 11,270 employees of different government-controlled corporations stand abated in the Federal Services Tribunal (FST), which are not protected or covered by the judgement of the Supreme Court of June 27, 2006, FST sources told Business Recorder here on Thursday.
They said that the apex court had mandated such litigants to resort to competent forums for redressing their grievances within 90 days, and that the bar of limitation provided by the respective law would not operate against them till the expiry of the stipulated period.
They said that there were 21,004 cases of service matters pending in the FST on June 26, 2006, of which 9,734 pertained to government employees and 11,270 to employees of semi-government or government-controlled bodies, like Wapda, Sui gas, PTCL, OGDC, USC, PTV, State Life Insurance Corp, State Bank, other banks, etc.
They said that after judgement of the Supreme Court, cases of 9,734 of government employees remained in the FST for adjudication, while the corporation employees have been advised to obtain available relief from the forum which was available to them prior to the addition of Section 2-A in the Services Tribunals Act 1973.
Sources said that FST was giving notice to the affected litigants that "where abatement of appeals/proceedings results as a consequence of operation of law, such abatement becomes operative ipso facto at once and there is no need or legal requirement for obtaining any formal order or declaration from the same forum or court being seized of the matter and time wasted before those forums thereafter cannot be availed of by the concerned party under the guise of 'pursuing the matter before competent forum' as, in fact, after abatement of the proceedings such forum cannot be held to be competent or proper forum."
Disposing of hundreds of constitutional petitions, a nine-member full bench of the Supreme Court had held that:
The effect of the Supreme Court judgement was that:
a) The cases which have been decided finally by this Court in exercise of jurisdiction under Article 212(3) of the Constitution shall not be opened and if any Review Petition, Misc. Application or Contempt Application, filed against the judgement is pending, it shall be heard independently and shall not be affected by the ratio of this judgement.
b) The proceedings instituted either by an employee or by the an employer, pending before this Court, against the judgement of the Service Tribunal, not covering by category (a) before this Court or the Service Tribunal shall stand abated, leaving the parties to avail remedy prevailing prior to promulgation of Section 2-A of the STA, 1973.
c) The cases or proceedings which are not protected or covered by this judgement shall be deemed to have abated and the aggrieved person may approach the competent forums for redressing their grievances within a period of 90 days and the bar of limitation provided by the respective laws, shall not operate against them till the expiry of stipulated period.
d) The cases in which the order of Service Tribunal has been implemented shall remain intact for a period of 90 days or till the filing of appropriate proceedings, whichever is earlier.
e) The Service Tribunal shall decide pending cases under Section 2-A of the STA, 1973 in view of the above observations. However, if any of the cases is covered by clause 'c' (ibid), a period of 90 days shall be allowed to aggrieved party to approach the competent forum for redressing its grievance.