The appeal before us involves an application by the appellant for an order of certiorari to quash an award made on 20 January 1979 by the Industrial Court in Industrial Court Case No. 200 of 1978 (`the second award') as an aftermath of Award No. 148 of 1978 in Industrial Court Case No. 169 of 1976 made on 7 October 1978 (`the first award'). To obviate prolixity, all references in this judgment to statutory provisions are to the Industrial Relations Act 1967.

It is not necessary to set out in any detail the fs of this matter and it will suffice to only relate the salient facts in so far as they are material to the determination of what is primarily and substantially a point of law in issue in these proceedings. The Minister of Labour and Manpower referred to the Industrial Court a trade dispute between the parties pertaining to a new collective agreement on the expiry of the previous one and the Industrial Court after an extensive hearing made the first award under which on computation some RM400,000 was payable by the appellant to its employees on or before 30 November 1978 as adjustments and arrears of wages. In view of the deadline imposed, the appellant's solicitors wrote a letter to the Industrial Court on 18 November 1978 seeking its indulgence in view of financial hardship and cash flow problems and putting forward a proposal to effect payment of the adjustments and arrears in four instalments payable between 15 November 1978 and 15 May 1979.

On the strength of this letter of 18 November 1978 the Industrial Court immediately registered what it considered a dispute between the parties as a new case and summoned both sides to appear before it on 2 December 1978 on the basis that this letter was a complaint in writing lodged under s. 56(1) for non-compliance with the first award. After some five days of hearing the Industrial Court made the second award on 20 January 1979 which resulted in the appellant being liable for the payment of some RM150,000 in addition to the amount payable under the first award and ordered a sum of RM200,000 to be paid by the appellant forthwith, by midnight that very day, on pain of prosecution, according to the appellant's manager's affidavit and the balance on 20 February 1979 in the sum of RM47,267 as calculated by the respondent.

Another aspect of relevance in this matter is that in the course of the proceedings which culminated in the second award there was a change of solicitors acting for the appellant and Shearn, Delamore & Co. wrote to the Industrial Court on 16 January 1979 to state that they were now acting for the appellant in the matter and gave notice that at the resumed hearing on 20 January 1979 they would formally submit that all proceedings consequent to the first award were void and of no legal effect, but when Counsel from that firm appeared before the Industrial Court on the day in question he was bluntly told by the Chairman that he could not appear for the appellant as no warrant of authority to appear had been applied for under s. 27. He was denied permission to address the Court on this issue of representation as well as on the substantive issues involved in the matter and the appellant was accordingly without legal representation on that day when a computation of the total arrears to be paid by the appellant was produced to the Industrial Court by the respondent's solicitors with no opportunity to the appellant through its legal representative to comment on or criticise this document.

The appellant then applied for and obtained leave to apply for certiorari to have the second award and all proceedings relating thereto quashed on the grounds that the Industrial Court was functus officio after handing down the first award and the letter of 18 November 1978 could not operate to confer jurisdiction on it under s. 56 and that the second award was made in breach of natural justice as the appellant was denied legal representation in the circumstances stated earlier. Ha