HYDERABAD, May 19: Justice Shabbir Ahmed of the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit, the other day set aside the order passed by the commissioner, Workmen & Authority Under the Payment of Wages Act, Hyderabad, ordering the release of Rs3,849,897 to 235 irrigation department employees in the head of overtime and treating them as factory workers.

The court has also imposed cost of Rs50,000, of which Rs40,000 will be recovered proportionately from the monthly salaries of the 235 employees of the irrigation department, and Rs10,000 from the salary of Abdus Sattar Daudpota, the then authority who assumed the jurisdiction in the matter against the law for extraneous reasons.

The court allowed the constitutional petition, filed by the province of Sindh through the secretary, Irrigation & Power department. The department was represented by Mohammad Mustafa Hussain. The additional advocate general, Sindh, Masood A. Noorani, was on court notice.

The 235 irrigation employees had filed a joint application under section 15 & 16 of the Payment of Wages Act before the commissioner, Workmen & Authority Under Payment of Wages Act, Hyderabad (respondent-1), praying for directives to the executive engineer concerned to make payment of Rs3,849,807 for the period of July 1985 to June 1988 as well as compensation.

The executive engineer, Tubewell Operation, Hala division, a respondent in the workers’ application, filed his objections saying the workers are governed by Sindh Government Rules. The employees’ application was allowed on December 8, 1991 and the Irrigation Department filed an appeal before the Labour Court-VI which dismissed it on January 25, 1992.

The province of Sindh through the secretary, Irrigation, challenged both the orders before the SHC, Hyderabad circuit bench, on the ground that several other similar applications have been allowed by respective commissioners Workmen & Authority Under Payment of Wages Act, functioning in different districts of the province of Sindh with the result that the petitioner department has been burdened with the liability of over Rs90 million.

The department has neither budgetary provisions nor resources to make such payment, it was argued by the petitioner’s counsel.

He stated that respondent workers were only entitled to salary and allowances as admissible to all government servants.

He prayed the court to declare both the impugned orders as illegal and issue permanent injunction, restraining both the respondents from implementing the orders against the petitioner.