JUDGMENT

M. M. DAS, J. : The writ petitioner was an employee under the Opp.Party-Rourkela Steel Plant of Steel Authority of India Ltd. The case of the petitioner is that in order to victimizing and curb his Trade Union activities, the employer with mala fide intention charge sheeted him on 12.8.2000 for commission of certain alleged misconduct of intimidating an officer of the Company within the work premises by exhibiting indecent behaviour etc. An inquiry was conducted to prove the charges levelled against the petitioner which, according to the petitioner, was conducted in a perfunctory and arbitrary manner violating the principles of natural justice. The petitioner alleges that he was not afforded with the opportunity to adduce evidence during the course of inquiry and the Inquiry Officer holding the petitioner guilty of the charges, submitted a report. The disciplinary authority accepting the said export proposed to dismiss the petitioner form service and since I.D. Case No.7 of 1997 relating to another industrial dispute was pending before the Industrial Tribunal, Rourkela where the petitioner was a party as the work¬man, the Opp.Party- Management filed an application under Section 33(2)(b) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter re¬ferred to as “the Act”) for approval of its action as per the proviso to the said Section. The said application was registered as I.D. Misc. Case No.46 of 2000. The petitioner, on receiving the notice to show cause in the aforesaid case, filed his show cause. Thereafter, the Opp.Party filed an application to take up the question of fairness of the domestic inquiry as the prelimi¬nary issue, to which the petitioner filed his objection. The said application under Section 33(2)(b) of the Act was allowed by the learned Industrial Tribunal, Rourkela by its order dated 17.7.2002. Being aggrieved by the said order annexed as Annexure-6 to the writ petition, the petitioner has preferred this appli¬cation under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India.

2. Mr. Somanath Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioner contended that the impugned order under Annexure-6 could not have been passed by the Industrial Tribunal on the application filed by the Management to consider the question of fairness of domes¬tic inquiry as preliminary issue. He submitted that it is well settled in law that in an industrial adjudication, the industrial adjudicator is to take up all the issues simultaneously and it is not permitted to decide a case in a piece meal manner. He further submitted that if all the issues are not taken up together, delay would be caused in deciding the case which would lead to the misery of the work¬man and as such, the purpose and intention of enactment of the Industrial Dispute Act would be frustrated.

3. The Opp.Party in spite of notice has not entered ap¬pearance in this case.

4. I have perused the impugned order under Annexure-6 passed by the Industrial Tribunal, Rourkela. I find form the said order that the Tribunal while considering the application filed by the Management under Section 33(2)(b) of the Act, has minutely gone into the details of the domestic inquiry conducted by the Inquiry Officer against the petitioner and as a matter of fact even has gone to the extent of giving a finding on the legality of the said inquiry conducted against the petitioner and has re¬corded a finding that the inquiry was properly conducted and there was no violation of the principle of natural justice. It has also found that sufficient materials were made available by the Management before the Inquiry Officer for proving the charges framed against the petitioner.

5. Mr. Somanath Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that though the Tribunal conducted a hearing on the application filed by the Opp.Party-Management of decide the ques¬tion of fairness of the domestic inquiry as preliminary issue, but the Tribunal without affording any opportunity of hearing to the petitioner to add