Exercise of powers of Civil Court under Section 5 (2) of the Service Tribunals Act, 1973 and the analogy of the provision for decreeing the suit by the civil court under Order XII, Rule 6, CPC.

The acumen and perspicacity of establishing the Service Tribunal under Article 212 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973 (“Constitution”) is to expeditiously decide appeals with regard to the terms and conditions of service of Civil Servants and, according to the command of Section 5 (2) of the Service Tribunals Act, 1973, the Tribunal is deemed to be a Civil Court and have the same powers as are vested in such Court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (“CPC”) including the powers of enforcing the attendance of any person and examining him on oath; compelling the production of documents and issuing commission for the examination of witnesses and documents. The Tribunal may on appeal, confirm, set aside, vary or modify the order appealed against to do complete and substantial justice between the parties. The learned Tribunal passed the judgment basically on the admission made by the Department in the comments presented to the Tribunal and, even on the date of hearing, the presence of at least seven officers is marked and they did not raise anything to the contrary which amounts to an admission to the written comments filed in response to the appeal. Under Section 5 of the Service Tribunals Act 1973, the Tribunal is deemed to be a Civil Court and have the same powers as are vested in such court under the CPC, including certain other powers mentioned in the Section, but not excluding or disregarding other powers of the Civil Court provided in the CPC, therefore, the learned Tribunal while exercising powers of Civil Court enshrined under the CPC had rightly looked into the admission made by the petitioners in their comments. It is worthwhile to reiterate that the respondents (employees) neither approached the learned Tribunal for any relief of regularization of their contractual services which could have been decided in view of the dictums laid down by this Court, nor in view of any special law promulgated for the regularization of contractual employees, nor in view of any Government policy or cabinet decision. On the contrary, their services were already regularized by the Department. In such an eventuality, if the Department of its own will and volition decides to initiate any action for regularizing the services of contractual employees, the said action cannot be termed or declared illegal or unconstitutional unless the rights of similarly placed persons or employees are contravened or exploited due to such regularization which is altogether missing in the case and does not require any indulgence.

The analogy and/or raison d'être of the provision for decreeing the suit by the civil court as encapsulated under Order XII, Rule 6, CPC is quite applicable in the present circumstances of the case which empowers and qualifies the civil court to dispose of the lis with regard to which there is no dispute between parties, but for this purpose the entire plaint or written statement is required to be read for the purposes of finding out the nature of the admission, whether it is clear, specific, unambiguous, definite and categorical and the Court is bound to examine the plaint and written statement with diligent application of mind to ascertain the nature of admission. The elemental characteristic of an admission is that it should be a condensed and cautious act. The precondition and benchmark of an admission is that it should be unconditional, unambiguous and intend the same to be read and construed as an admission. The legislative intent is clear that it should be unambiguous and clear. The Black's Law Dictionary (Tenth Edition) at page 56 explains the word “Admission” means “any statement or assertion made by a party to a case and offered against that party; an acknowledgment that the facts are true”. The admission within the bounds of law would discernibly have the aftermath of wrapping up the case without the determination of any further question and evidence. The legislative purpose of Order XII, Rule 6, CPC is to cut short the length of litigation with forward-thinking comprehension and without the imposition of any irrational constraint, rather the court should consciously and judicially look into the fundamental constituents of the admission for its satisfaction whether the lis can attain finality or not in the facts and circumstances of each case. In the event of any ambiguous, conditional or unclear admission, the court cannot be left to interpretative determination, but the proper course would be that the case should be decided on merits after denouement of a full-fledged trial. The cumulative upshot is that there should be an unambiguous and unequivocal admission by the other side of his liability and commitment towards other side of the lis. 