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Petitions Nos. SL‑173 and MN‑164 of 1984/Pb., decided on 24th July, 1984.

‑‑‑Ss. 8 & 10‑‑Registration of Trade Union‑‑Election of new office- bearers disputed‑‑Charge informed to Registrar but no decision taken by Registrar and registration cancelled by Registrar‑‑On appeal Labour Court directing restoration of registration‑‑Appellate Tribunal in revision directing that Labour Court, in circumstances, should have directed Registrar to first decide question of approval of change of office‑bearers and then to dispose of question of cancellation of registration‑ Revision‑‑Industrial Relations Ordinance (XXIII of 1969), S. 38(3‑a).

Nemo for Petitioner.

Khalid Pervez Sheikh for Respondent No.1.

Dates of hearing: 17th and 18th July, 1984.

The revisions captioned above give information about the illegality of two orders passed by the learned Presiding Officer, Punjab Labour Court No. 9, Multan, dated 3‑6‑1984. By one order the petition of Najfi Bottlers Worker's Union for being impleaded as party was rejected and by the order the appeal of Najfi Bottlers Labour Worker's Union was accepted and registration of the said union was restored. As both the revisions arise from the same orders, they are being disposed of together through this single judgment.

2. The cancellation of the registration admittedly took place on the move of Abdul Hamid, General Secretary, and Mr. Akram, President of the said union. The appeal against the orders of cancellation of registra tion was lodged by Qazi Maqbool Elahi, the alleged new General Secretary of the Union. The pivotal question on which the decision of the dispute hinges is whether the General Secretary and President were legally and correctly removed and Qazi Maqbool Elahi and Muhammad Yousaf were legally and correctly elected as General Secretary and President, respectively. According to the learned lower Court, the change in the office‑bearers was duly informed to the Registrar. But the difficulty is that the Registrar did not proceed to decide the change one way or the other. Since without deciding the said matter the Registrar had cancelled the registration, the decision of the learned lower Court restoring the registration is correct but the learned lower Court failed to notice that only after deciding whether change in the office‑holders was correct or not, the dispute could not be completely and finally A resolved. If the previous office‑holders were legally and correctly removed, the prayer made by them for deregistration was quite uncalled for and without locus standi and if they had been illegally removed, then the new office‑holder had no locus standi to challenge the order of Registrar before the learned lower Court in appeal. The learned lower Court, therefore, should have directed the Registrar first to decide the question of approval of the change alleged to have been effected in office‑holders of the union and then to dispose of the question of cancellation of registration.

3. As a result, the revisions are partly accepted and modifying the impugned decision of the learned lower Court, the Registrar is directed to first decide the question of the approval of the change, alleged to have been effected in the office‑holders of the union and then re-decide the question of deregistration of the said union.

4. So far as the application made by the petitioner to the learned lower Court for being impleaded as party to the appeal is concerned, the petitioner was not a necessary party and it was in the discretion of the learned lower Court to allow or disallow the petition. So, there is no legal infirmity in the order and the order cannot be interfered with.

A. E.

Orders accordingly.

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