( 1 ) THIS order will also govern Miscellaneous Petitions Nos. 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 78, 81, 85, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 101, 118, 150 and 152 all of 1960.

( 2 ) THE petitioners in these twenty-One petitions under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India, who are all owners of concerns in the Mahakoshal region of Madhya Pradesh engaged in the manufacture and sale of bidis, challenge the legality of notification No. 307-XVI-58 published in the extraordinary Gazette dated the 30th December 1958 notifying the minimum rates of wages in respect of employment in tobacco (including bidi making) manufactory. The petitioner in each of the eases seeks an appropriate writ or direction prohibiting the opponent State from giving effect to the said notification, and a writ of certiorari for quashing the order of the authority constituted under Section 20 (1) of the Minimum Wages Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) directing him to pay the difference between the wages actually paid and the wages that ought to have been paid under the said notification to the bidi rollers employed, using the word in a neutral sense, by the Sattedar (intermediary), who has been impl