KUNJELI MATHEW Vs. ENFORCEMENT OFFICER (RECOVERY)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant Kunjeli Mathew filed W.P.(C) No. 9931 of 2006: she maintained that she had no obligation to pay any provident fund dues, for she leased out the cashew factory-initially owned by her husband, since deceased-to S. Mujib Rehuman and Suhrabeevi (the 3rd and the 4th respondents). She contended that any statutory liability, including that of provident fund, should be attributable to those lessees or transferees. So, she assailed the statutory demand made by the Enforcement Officer (the 1st respondent) and the Recovery Officer (the 2nd respondent) of the Employees Provident Fund Department (EPF Department). Unimpressed by Mrs. Mathew's assertions, a learned Single Judge, through a judgment dated 13.08.2013, dismissed the writ petition. Further aggrieved, Mrs. Mathew is before us.

(2.) Briefly stated, Mrs. Mathew's husband owned a cashew factory-Rajan Cashew Factory. After his death in 1991, Mrs. Mathew, his widow, could not run it. Accordingly, through Exts.P1 and P2 lease agreements, she transferred the management, first, to Mujib Rehuman for the years 1993-1994; later, in 1995, to Suhrabeevi. In fact, Suhrabeevi changed the factory's name to Siraj Cashew Factory and carried on with the management.

(3.) In course of time, because of the provident fund arrears accumulated during the period when the Factory had been under the management of respondents 3 and 4, the EPF authorities issued Exts.P7 and P9 demand notices to Mrs. Mathew. This is despite her submitting Ext.P8 explanation informing the authorities that by the time she transferred the factory management, there had been no dues. She also informed the authorities that the dues, now demanded, were incurred only by the lessees. But, the authorities persisted with the demand.