Judgment

SHELAT, J.:- This appeal, by special leave, raises the question as to whether an order dismissing a writ petition challenging the validity of an industrial award, which disposes of one of the items of a charter of demands by workmen but leaves the rest of the demands to be adjudicated by a subsequent award, is a final order in a civil proceeding of a High Court within the meaning of Article 133 (l) of the Constitution.

2. The following are the relevant facts:

The appellant-company conducts factories at Mulund in Greater Bombay, Kymore, Calcutta and Podanur. The present dispute relates to the factory at Mulund where the company employs more than 1700 workmen and has its Head Office also.

3. On September 21, 1962 the 4th respondent union on behalf of the workmen of the Mulund factory submitted a charter of demands consisting of 20 items including the demand for increased dearness allowance. By an agreement dated November 26, 1964 between the appellant-company and the 4th respondent union made under Section 10-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the said demands were referred for adjudication to a board of arbitrators consisting of respondents 1 to 3. A notification dated December 5, 1964 referring the said disputes to respondents 1 to 3 was issued by the Maharashtra Government and published in the Government Gazette. Demand No. 1-A in the said charter of demands related to dearness allowance to be paid to both monthly and daily rated workmen at the rates therein set out. The arbitrators decided to hear and dispose of, first the dispute as to dearness allowance and then to deal with the rest of the disputes relating to other demands. Accordingly, the parties were heard and ultimately the arbitrators gave their award which they called Part I Award dated March, 27, 1965. The said award was a majority decision in the sense that one of the arbitrators dissented from the opinion of the other two. So far as the present appeal is concerned, it is not necessary to set out the contents of the award. The said Part I award was thereafter published in the Government Gazette dated April 15, 1965 and became enforceable under Section 17-A of the Act on the expiry of 30 days from the date of its publication. If the Appellant-company were to be right, the said award imposed a burden of about Rs. 40 lacs by way of arrears, the award having been made retrospective in operation, and Rs. 5 58 lacs as and by way of recurring liability every year.

4. Aggrieved by the said award the appellant-company filed a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution being Special Civil Application No. 824 of 1965 in the High Court of Bombay for quashing the said award on diverse grounds. The writ petition came up for hearing before a Division Bench and was dismissed on merits by an order dated April 10, 1968. The appellant-company thereupon filed an application being SC Civil Application No. 2687 of 1968 for leave to appeal to this Court. That application was rejected by an order dated November 25, 1968 which stated:

"No application lies under Article 226 of the Constitution as there is further arbitration."

It appears that the words "Article 226" were mentioned in the said order through inadvertence. What was meant was that as the arbitration proceedings were still pending and the board of arbitrators had Yet to adjudicate on the rest of the reference, the disputes between the parties could not be said to have been finally disposed of, and that therefore, the said Part I award was an interlocutory order. Consequently, neither that award nor the order dismissing the writ petition against that award was a final order within the meaning of Article 133 (1). This appeal challenges the correctness of this order.

5. The only question arising in this appeal is whether the High Court s order dated November 23, l968 dismissing the writ petition is a final order within the meaning of Article 133 (1). There is no dispute that the question of dearness allowance along