(delivering the judgment of the Court): The appellants had applied for an order of certiorarito remove to the High Court and to quash the award of the Industrial Court in Industrial Court Case No. 228 of 1976. They failed in their application and now appeal.

The dispute before the Industrial Court was over the claim of Mr. Soon, a Hospital Assistant who was first employed by the appellants in October 1970. The respondent Union, of which Soon was a member, maintains that the latter was recruited as a Grade I Hospital Assistant and had been performing the duties of a Hospital Assistant of that grade but was not paid the salary of that grade as provided in the 1971 agreement between the Malayan Agricultural Producers Association and the All Malayan Estates Staff Union. The appellants however insisted that Soon had been recruited as a Grade II Hospital Assistant.

It is not disputed that Soon first brought up the question of grading with the appellants on April 27, 1974, and eventually the dispute was referred under section 26(2) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1967 to the Industrial Court on November 8, 1976. By its award, made on March 10, 1978, the court found on the evidence that Mr. Soon was in effect employed as a Grade I Hospital Assistant from the date of his recruitment viz. October 1, 1970, and ordered appellants to pay him the difference between what he should have been paid and what he actually received since October 1, 1970 in basic salary and allowances if any.

Before the High Court the issue was narrowed down. The appellants accepted the order of the Industrial Court that Mr. Soon should be emplaced on Grade I and paid the salary of that grade, but argued that the order should not be made retrospective from october 1, 1970, by reason of section 30(7) of the Act. Though earlier dates were suggested, the learned judge rightly held that the date of reference by the Minister, November 8, 1976 is the date of "reference to court".

The learned judge then proceeded to examine section 30(7) and in a well reasoned judgment held that section 30(7) does not apply in this case, and the six months limitation imposed by statute is also inapplicable.

He dismissed the application with costs.

Azmi J.'s interpretation of section 30(7) is, submits counsel for the appellants, wrong. Learned counsel goes on to say that there is nothing uncertain or ambiguous in section 30(7), that its language is clear and manifests the intention of Parliament.

Section 30(7) reads as follows:

"An award may specify the period during which it shall continue in force, and may be retrospective to such date as may be specified in the award:

Provided that the retrospective date of the award may not, except in the case of a decision of the court under section 33 or an order of the court under section 56(2)(c) or an award of the court for the reinstatement of a workman on a reference to it in respect of the dismissal of a workman, be earlier than six months from the date on which the dispute was referred to the court."

The learned judge had, he complains, seen a lacuna in the proviso, referring to that part of his grounds of judgment wherein he noted that the draftsman of the Act had only made three exceptions to the proviso when it is clear that there are other situations, as in the present appeal, which if known to the legislature would also have been exempted from the six months' limitation.

To support his argument that time is the essence of the scheme of the Act, Mr. Nathan indicated various sections of the Act which placed an emphasis on the time within which certain acts had to be done. For instance, under section 13(4), an employer who has been invited by a trade union of workmen to commence collective bargaining must reply notifying acceptance or otherwise within 14 days of receipt of the invitation, and if the employer accepts the parties should commence collective bargaining within thirty days thereafter; under section 14(2)(b) a colle