Certiorari and wage classification disputes can be corrected where a patent legal error affects wage entitlement under payment law.

A writ of certiorari may correct a manifest error of law apparent on the face of the record, and the High Court was justified in interfering under Articles 226 and 227 where the appellate authority plainly misread the wage agreement by treating one clause as controlling another. The Payment of Wages Act authority also had jurisdiction under section 15 to entertain claims from employees in the disputed category because the classification issue was incidental to deciding whether wages were actually payable. The applications were competent, the appeal failed, and the authority could decide the matter according to law.

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Issues: (i) whether the High Court was justified in interfering under Articles 226 and 227 with the appellate authority's construction of the wage agreement as an error apparent on the face of the record; (ii) whether a claim by employees falling in the disputed category was maintainable before the authority under section 15 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936.

Issue (i): whether the High Court was justified in interfering under Articles 226 and 227 with the appellate authority's construction of the wage agreement as an error apparent on the face of the record.

Analysis: The writ of certiorari lies not merely for jurisdictional excess but also to correct an error of law apparent on the face of the record. Where the appellate authority treated one clause of the agreement as controlling the other and thereby read an inapplicable test into a separate category of employees, the mistake was not a matter of alternative construction but a plain misreading of the document. The distinction between clerks and employees placed in a separate scale below full-fledged clerks made the error manifest.

Conclusion: The High Court was justified in correcting the patent error and the interference was within jurisdiction.

Issue (ii): whether a claim by employees falling in the disputed category was maintainable before the authority under section 15 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936.

Analysis: The authority under section 15 has jurisdiction over claims arising out of deductions from wages or delay in payment of wages, and it may decide questions incidentally connected with that claim. Where the employer-employee relationship is admitted and the dispute concerns whether the employees fall within one of two subsisting wage categories under the relevant award or agreement, the question is intimately connected with the determination of wages and does not take the matter outside section 15. A claim does not become one for potential wages merely because classification depends on the duties actually performed. The concurrent finding on res judicata against two employees did not assist the appellant.

Conclusion: The applications were competent under section 15 and the authority had jurisdiction to entertain them.

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed, the High Court's order was sustained, and the matter remained available for decision by the authority in accordance with law.

Ratio Decidendi: A writ of certiorari may correct a manifest error of law apparent on the face of the record, and under section 15 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, the authority may decide incidental classification questions that are integral to determining whether the claimed wages are actually payable.

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