A Single Bench of Justice Vinod Chatterjee Koul of High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh while dealing with the writ petitions challenging the Award Passed Authority under Payment of Wages Act, 1936 and also the Orders passed by the Appellate Authority on the ground that the same have been passed without Appreciation of the provisions of the Act and that the Appellate Court has dismissed the appeals while observing that under Section 17 (1A) of the Act no appeal shall lie unless the Memorandum of Appeal is accompanied by a certificate issued by the Authority to the effect that appellant has deposited the amount payable under the direction appealed against and there is no escape from this mandatory provision of law.

The Court while referring to the legislative intent of the Act of 1936 held that the Condition as envisaged in Sec 17(1A) is mandatory and as such any person aggrieved of the Award passed by the Authority under the Act is required to fulfill the mandatory condition of appending the certificate from the Authority to the effect that he deposited the amount payable under the orders of the Authority. The court further held that the provisions of Sec 17(1A) of the Act are mandatory in nature, in as much as the use of the word “shall” used in Sec 17 (1A) of the Act indicates that the said amount is mandatorily to be deposited before the Authority, failing which the appeal would be treated as defective and would not be heard until and unless the defect was removed.