1. These writ petitions challenge the validity of a notification fixing minimum wages for employment in the cashew industry in this State. A copy of the notification is Ext. P-4 in O. P. No. 1678 of 1967. Arguments were advanced in the said O. P. and it was agreed at the hearing that the remaining writ petitions must share the same fate.

2. The notification in question has been impugned on several grounds; that the Government's power of issuing a notification under the Act is quasi-judicial in nature and no reasons had been given in the instant case in the impugned notification for disregarding the advice of the Advisory Board and fixing the minimum wages at a level which was bound to have far-reaching effects and consequences; that the constitution of the Advisory Board was itself illegal, that the capacity of the employer and, in particular, of the industry to pay the minimum wages, had been ignored; and that the guarantee of minimum work to the workers assured by the impugned notification was beyond the purview of the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act.

3. Reading preamble of the Minimum Wages Act along with S.3 thereof which empowers the government to fix the minimum