PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court has declared that the authority set up under provincial payment of wages law competent to hear pleas of employees of a trans-provincial establishment instead of referring the same to National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC).

A single-member bench consisting of Justice Mohammad Ijaz Khan ruled that employee of a trans-provincial establishment, whose branch was situated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, could approach the authority established under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Payment of Wages Act, 2013, for recovery of his dues, instead of approaching NIRC under Industrial Relations Act, 2012, which was a federal law.

The bench observed that neither KP Industrial Act, 2010, nor Industrial Relations Act, 2012, had excluded the jurisdiction of the Authority established under KP Payment of Wages Act (KPPWA), 2013.

The bench gave its findings while rejecting a revision petition of a prominent educational academy, challenging the orders of the authority under KPPWA in favour of one of its former employee and subsequent dismissal of its appeal by the labour court in Haripur.

Bench rejects petition of educational academy against payment of dues to former staffer

The petitioner had challenged the said two orders on question of jurisdiction of the authority under the provincial law on the ground that since it was a trans-provincial establishment, therefore, the authority under the provincial law didn’t have jurisdiction to entertain the claim application.

The respondent, Zahid Mehmood, who is a former employee of the petitioner’s academy, had approached the authority under KPPWA, stating that due to the spread of Covid-19 pandemic in the month of March 2020, the petitioner had closed its institute.

He had stated when the institute was reopened in Nov 2020, he was ousted without any written order and the present petitioner refused to pay him his legal dues and service benefits, therefore, he filed his claim before the authority.

The authority had held the respondent entitled for the outstanding dues as well as one time compensation equal to the outstanding amount on Feb 9, 2022.

The said order was challenged by the petitioner before the labour court, Haripur, being an appellate forum under KPPWA, however, it was dismissed on June 12, 2023, following which the petitioner filed the instant revision petition.

The respondent’s counsel Jehangir Khan contended that the authority was fully competent to hear pleas under KPPWA.

The bench, in its 12-page detailed judgement, ruled that the theme, mechanism and various provisions of KP Industrial Relations Act, 2010, Industrial Relations Act, 2012, and KPPWA, 2013, had in a very clear words accommodated the powers and functions of each forum, provided under those laws including the labour court under the first law, NIRC under the federal law and the Authority under the 2013 law.

It was observed that those laws had not excluded jurisdiction of each other.

The bench also referred to an earlier judgement of PHC of 2019 wherein the court had concluded that a person, who was an employee in a trans-provincial establishment, could approach the authority established under the 2013 law. It added that in the said judgement, it had also been held that the provisions of KPPWA were applicable to all factories, industries and commercial establishments under the control of federal government or provincial government that were situated in the territorial jurisdiction of the province.

The bench ruled that the trans-provincial establishment had not been excluded from the applicability of KPPWA.

“Apart from the above, even otherwise, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Payment of Wages Act, 2013 has provided a complete mechanism to redress grievances of an employee. Similarly, it has also specifically described the class of employees as well as the categories of the establishments to which the said Act of 2013 is to be applicable,” the bench observed.

The bench has also discussed in detail different provisions of provincial as well as federal laws on the subject, especially in the light of Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2024