SANATAN GHOSH Vs. REGIONAL PROVIDENT FUNDS COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners, inter alia pray for quashing of the cases being Cases Nos. 2152-2181 and 2197-2205, all of 1987, pending in the Court of the learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Calcutta, under Section 14(IA) read with Section 14A(1)of the Employees Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952.

(2.) In spite of service no one appears to oppose this application. The statements and allegations made in the writ petition go unchallenged and have to be accepted on their face value on the basis of the doctrine of non-traverse.

(3.) The short case of the petitioner is that one of the petitioners is the Managing Director of Mechanical Engineering Company (Private) Ltd., and the other two petitioners are Directors of the Company. It is the uncontroverted case of the petitioner that all provident fund dues relating to all the employees of the Company have been paid in full and nothing is due and payable in respect of any other employees. Criminal cases relate to the non-payment of the provident fund amounts in respect of the Managing Director and the two Directors of the Company. Sri Base contends that neither a Director nor the Managing Director of a Company is an employee within the meaning of either the Companies Act, 1956, or the Employees Provident Funds Act, 1952, and, as such, no amount is either payable or deductible from any amount paid to such Directors or Managing Director.