COMMISSIONER OF THE REGIONAL PROVIDENT FUND TAMIL NADU AND PONDICHERRY STATES MADRAS Vs. P G SRINIVASAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Commissioner of Regional Provident Fund, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, who is the first defendant in the suit is the appellant. A show cause notice was issued under Ex. B-3 to the plaintiff as to why a sum of Rs.918.70 should not be levied as penal damages for delayed payments of contributions to the Employees? Provident Fund. THE Plaintiff challenged the validity of the notice and filed the suit for a declaration that the notice is illegal and for a consequential injunction restraining the defendants from taking any coercive steps to collect the penal damages. Both the courts below have concurrently upheld the claim of the plaintiff and granted a decree as prayed for. THE Lower appellate court has found that the notice Ex.B-3 is not in consonance with the provisions of Sec.l4-B of the Employee's Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, and that a reasonable opportunity should be given to the Plaintiff before the levy of damages is determined by the defendants.

(2.) LEARNED counsel for the appellant contends that there is a distinction between the amounts due and recoverable under Sec.7-A of the Act and the damages due and recoverable under Sec.l4-B of the Act. According to learned counsel the elaborate procedure prescribed in Sec.7-A would apply only to cases of contributions and not to cases of levy of damages Sec.14-B of the Act reads thus: ?Where an employer makes default in payment of any contribution to the Fund, the Family Fund or the Insurance Fund or in the transfer of accumulations required to be transferred by him under sub-sec.(2) of Sec.15 or sub-sec.(5) of Sec.17, or in the payment of any charges payable under any other provisions of this act or of any scheme or Insurance Scheme or under any of the conditions specified under Sec. 17, the Central Provident Fund Commissioner or such other officer as may be authorised by the Central Government, by notification in the official Gazette in this behalf, may recover from the employer such damages, not exceeding the amount of arrears, as it may think fit to impose.? A proviso was introduced by Act 40 of 1973 and it is in the following terms: ?Provided that before levying and recovering such damages, the employer shall be given a reasonable opportunity of being heard.?

(3.) THE question which has arisen before me did not arise before the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court. THE Bench had no occasion to express their opinion on this question. Hence, the judgment of the Division Bench will not apply to the present case. No inference can be drawn from the above observations of the Division Bench that they took the view which is now put forward by learned counsel for the appellant.