Costs include travelling and halting allowance.

S.K. Das, J.-

The Punjab National Bank Ltd., is the appellant before us. Shorn of all details not necessary for our purpose, the facts are these. By its Order No. LR-100 (98) dated 2nd September, 1953, the Government of India, Ministry of Labour, appointed Shri Ram Kanwar, respondent No. 1, as the Industrial Tribunal for the adjudication of a dispute which had arisen between the appellant and its workmen in respect of the following matter:

“Absorption of Bharat Bank employees in the Punjab National Bank Ltd., and their service conditions”,

On 17th April, 1954, in the course of certain preliminary proceedings before respondent No. 1, an application was made on behalf of the All-India Punjab National Bank Employees’ Federation, in which it was stated that a number, of other Unions were involved in the dispute in question, because the appellant had branches all over India and there were several Unions of its employees at those branches. It was further stated in the application that some of those Unions had submitted their statements when the dispute in question was referred to the Industrial Tribunal, Bombay, with Shri Panchapagesa Shastri as its sole member and Chairman; that Tribunal did not, however, function as Shri Panchapagesa Shastri was appointed a member of the Labour Appellate) Tribunal of India. Two substantial prayers were made in the application of 17th April, 1954: one was that due publicity of the adjudication proceedings should be given by issuing notices to all those Unions to participate in the proceedings, and the second prayer was that an order should be made direcing the appellant to pay travelling and halting allowances to the representatives of the various Unions so as to enable the latter to send their representatives to Delhi, the place where the adjudication proceedings were pending. A list of fourteen Unions and organisations was given along with the application, with the number of representatives which each union or organisation wished to send.

In the present appeal we are concerned only with the second prayer made in the aforesaid application, and the order which respondent No. 1 made with regard to that prayer, being the order impugned before us, was in these terms:

“The management objects to the grant of any T.A. or halting allowance to the representatives of the Unions. It is, no doubt, correct that there is no provision of law on this point in favour of the representatives, but the general practice of various Tribunals has all along been to allow reasonable T.A. and halting allowance to the representatives of the Unions, specially in Banks’ cases. It is therefore, ordered that the representatives of the Unions, who put in appearance in the Tribunal from stations outside Delhi, shall be paid 21/2second class railway fares to and from Delhi, plus Rs.10 per day as halting allowance, by the management of the bank.

The Bank is also requested to direct its respective branches to pay travelling and halting allowances in advance to the employees who intend to come to Court as representatives”.

It may be stated here that out of the fourteen Unions and organisations which wanted to send their representatives to take part in the adjudication proceedings, two have their offices in Delhi. Respondent No. 1 directed the payment of travelling and halting allowances to the representatives of the remaining twelve Unions and organisations, and fixed the number of representatives to be sent by each Union or organisation.

The plea of the appellant was that the order passed by respondent No. 1 was wholly without jurisdiction and was also unjust, involving as it did an expenditure of not less than Rs.2,500 for each day of hearing in the course of the proceeding's before respondent No. 1. On that plea the appellant moved the Punjab High Court for the issue of a writ of certiorari or such other writ as might be appropriate, for the purpose of quashing the order of respondent No. 1. The Punjab High Court, however, dismiss