REGIONAL PROVIDENT COMMISSIONER Vs. REGIONAL LABOUR COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition is by the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Bangalore, praying for quashing the order of the Assistant Labour Commissioner (Central) allowing the application of the third respondent for payment of gratuity under the Payment of Gratuity Act ('the Act' for short) which order has been confirmed by the appellate authority functioning under the Act.

(2.) The facts of the case, in brief, are as follows: The third respondent was working as an Upper Division Clerk on - the stablishment of the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Bangalore. After putting in about 9 years and 9 months of service commencing from 20.6.1972, he resigned from service with effect from 3.3.1982. Thereafter on 14.6.1982, he made an application before the Assistant Labour Commissioner (Central) under the provisions of the Act praying for the issue of a direction to the petitioner to pay gratuity calculated at the rates prescribed under the Act. That application was allowed by the second respondent by his order, copy of which is produced as Annexure-E. The petitioner preferred an appeal before the appellate authority functioning under the Act under Section 7(7) of the Act. The appeal was also dismissed. Aggrieved by the said order, the petitioner has presented this writ petition.

(3.) Sri. M.S. Padmarajaiah, the learned counsel for the petitioner, contended that the provisions of the Act were not applicable to the petitioner and the view taken to the contrary by the first and second respondent were untenable. Elaborating his contention, learned counsel submitted as follows: The Provident Fund Organisation was a trust constituted under the provisions of the Employees' Provident Fund (Staff and Conditions of Service) Regulations Act, 1962 by the Central Government. Therefore it is an instrumentality of the Central Government. It has got its own rules regulating the conditions of service of its employees. Any claim for gratuity or other terminal benefits would be made and paid only under the regulations regulating the conditions of service and therefore the provisions of the payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 are not applicable. 3. As can be seen from the orders of the first and second respondents, the said authorities, after considering the provisions of Section 1(3) read with Section 14 of the Gratuity Act, have come to the conclusion that the provident fund trust was an establishment to which the provisions of the Gratuity Act applied and further having regard to the over-riding effect given under section 14 of the Gratuity Act, the 3rd respondent was entitled to gratuity under the Act. Learned counsel for the petitioner challenges the correctness of the said view by the two authorities.