Gopal Sri Ram JCA:

[1] This is an appeal against the judgment of Azmel J in refusing to issue an order of certiorari to quash the Award of the Industrial Court which was handed down on 23 December 1993.

[2] The facts relevant to the appeal are as follows:-

The respondent was initially employed as a fitter by the appellant in August 1961. He was later appointed as salesman. In a retrenchment exercise in September 1977, the respondent was discharged. In January 1978, the respondent was re-employed as a bill-collector On 24 October 1989, the appellant wrote to the respondent, informing him that he was being retrenched as bill-collector and offering retrenchment benefits of about RM27,000. The respondent did not accept the offer He claimed that the retrenchment was a dismissal disguised as a redundancy exercise.

[3] He, therefore, took advantage of s 20(1) of the Industrial Relations Act and lodged a complaint with the Director General of Industrial Relations. In due course, after the conciliation mechanism provided by s 20 had been exhausted, the respondent's representations were referred by the Minister of Human Resources to the Industrial Court. The axis of the dispute between p