Arun Kumar Mitra, J. - (1.) The petitioner in this writ petition was originally appointed as Card Writer-Record Keeper and he was appointed in the year 1976. The petitioner was promoted as a Clerk in the salary and wages section of the respondent No.3 in 1982 and according to the petitioner since then he had been rendering satisfactory services to the respondent No.3 with his utomost sincerity and honesty. The petitioner is an workman within the meaning of Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.
(2.) The petitioner challenges an order passed by the respondent No.2 whereby the said respondent refused to entertain an application under section 15(2)(b) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 on the ground that no prima facie case has been made out by the applicant at that stage in order to ascertain his chance of success in this case.
(3.) The background as made out in the writ petition is inter alia as follows : "There is a system in the respondent No.3 Company that on the pay days, if any of the employee of the Company of the respondent No.3 is absent then any authorized representative of the absentee employee, which authorized representative should be an employee of the respondent No.3 Company can draw the wages of the absentee employee on production of the authority letter. In this case the petitioner on receipt of such an authority letter used to issue a payment voucher to the representative who used to give thumb impression or sign in the Payment Register the name of the absentee employee and would receive the voucher wherein the name of the absentee was to be written by the petitioner. The authorized agent is to place the said cash payment voucher in cash section, who upon verification of the voucher will disburse the cash to the authorized representative.";