Gopal Sri Ram JCA:

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.

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.

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 pa