Judgment

GAJENDRAGADKAR, J.: This group of consolidated appeals has come before this Court with a certificate granted by the High Court at Bombay under Art. 133 of the Constitution; the certificate shows that according to the High Court the amount of the value of the subject-matter in dispute involved in these consolidated appeals exceeds Rs. 20,000 and they raise a substantial question of law.

2. The 385 appellants concerned in these 20 appeals are employees in the Watch and Ward department of various textile mills in Ahmedabad. They had filed 20 applications between July 22, 1953 to October 6, 1953, before the authority under the Payment of Wages Act (hereinafter called the authority) and had claimed overtime wages for the period between January 1951 to December 1951 and June-July 1953. These applications were accompanied by another set of 20 applications in which they prayed for condonation of delay made in putting forward the claim for overtime wages under the second proviso to S. 15(2) of the Payment of Wages Act (4 of 1936) (hereinafter called the Act). The authority considered the case made out by the appellants for condonation of delay and held that they had failed to prove s