Veeraswami, J.

This appeal raises an important point of industrial law, namely, whether a labour court, to which a valid reference of an industrial dispute for adjudication had been made, ceases to have jurisdiction to proceed to deal with it by reason of the fact that a majority of the workers, who had collectively sponsored the cause of a workman and raised an industrial dispute in regard to the propriety of the termination of his services, had subsequently, and pending adjudication of that dispute, retracted and withdrawn their support. The labour court, by is preliminary award dated 25 April, 1958 answered the question in the negative. On a petition filed by the management under Art. 226 of the Constitution, Balakrishna Ayyar, J., by his order dated 7 April, 1959, took a contrary view holding that the dispute referred to the labour court lost its character as an industrial dispute and was no longer such, and, therefore, the labour court would have no jurisdiction to proceed further in the matter. Accordingly the learned Judge issued a rule to that effect. This appeal is directed against that order.

By his order dated 12 July 1957, the managing editor of the "Hindu" te