ORDER :

A.K. Rajan, J.—The writ petition is for issue of writ of Certiorari. The petitioner is the Pandian Roadways Corporation Ltd., The second respondent was appointed as a Conductor with effect from 1.4.83. On 8.10.1983, while he was performing his duty in the bus bearing Registration No. TML 5606 at 3.40 p.m. in the afternoon trip from Sivakasi to Thiruvannamalai, the Checking Inspector boarded the bus at Thiruvannamalai and found that the second respondent issued only 5 tickets of 50 paise to five passengers travelling from Sivakasi to Thiruvannamalai, even though he had collected Rs.7.50 at the rate of Rs.1.50/- per ticket. Therefore, there is misappropriation of Rs.2.50 by the second respondent. In view of this misconduct, a charge memo was issued on 22.11.1983. An enquiry was conducted on 10.3.1984. The enquiry officer filed his report on 29.3.1984 holding that the charges have been proved. Thereafter, a second show cause notice was given on 24.5.1984. The second respondent also gave his explanation to the second show cause notice. Since the explanation was not satisfactory, the management imposed the punishment of dismissal from service with effect from 21.8.1984.

3. The petitioner also filed a petition before the Industrial Tribunal, Madras u/s 33(2(b) of the Industrial disputes Act for approval of the dismissal because an issue regarding payment of bonus to the petitioner was pending. Later on the said petition was transferred to the Labour Court, Madurai and numbered as Approval Petition No. 4 of 1986. The Labour Court rejected the approval petition on the ground that collection of batta was not paid along with his monthly salary and therefore, there was non-compliance of Section 33(2)(b) of the I.D.Act; It also held that the past record of the employee was not considered. Aggrieved by that, this writ petition has been filed by the writ petitioner.

4. The counsel for the petitioner submitted that collection of batta is not part of the wages and therefore non payment of batta does not vitiate the order of termination. Hence, the Labour Court was not correct in rejecting the approval.

5. The counsel for the 2nd respondent submitted that in the counter statement filed by the second respondent along with the vacate stay petition, it is stated that at the material point of time his salary was Rs. 746.65/- per month. But, he was paid Rs. 730/-. There is a balance of Rs. 16.65/-to be paid to the second respondent. In the typed set of papers filed the second respondent has given the details of his salary. In the counter filed in I.D.No. 62/82 it has been stated in paragraphs 2 and 3 that his basic pay was Rs. 465/-, D.A.-166.40, H.R.A.- Rs. 50, Village Compensatory Allowance - Rs. 23.25/-, Health Allowance- Rs.26/-, Washing allowance- Rs. 10/- and in all it comes to Rs. 746.65/- whereas he was paid only Rs. 735.00; Rs.16/- was not paid at all. Therefore, there is non-compliance of the mandatory provisions of the law. Therefore, the rejection of the approval order was valid. In support of his contention, the learned counsel for the second respondent referred to the judgment of this Court in W.P.No. 11802 of 1989 dated 9.11.1998 in which a similar question has been decided; When the dismissal order was served on the respondent in that case only Rs.758/- was paid as salary month of December, 1985, while he was paid Rs. 795/- as salary earlier. Since the employee was paid less than a month's pay this Court upheld the order of the Tribunal that the essential condition of payment of one month's wages was not observed while issuing dismissal order. Therefore, the counsel argued that the order of the Industrial Tribunal is valid and it cannot be set aside.

6. The learned counsel for the writ petitioner vehemently argued that the wages was paid in full and there is nothing on record to show that the amount paid was less than the actual wages per month. The main contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the collection