JAGDISH KUMAR Vs. EMPLOYEES PROVIDENT FUND COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) C.M. No.12721 of 2014 Application is allowed. Circular dated 11.3.2011(Annexure P-5) is taken on record.

(2.) When the scheme-making authority conceived sub-para 6 of Paragraph 72, it did not mean that the money from the Inoperative Account will become irretrievable by the true owner of the money. The right to receive money on proof of identity would remain in hand of the employee in sub-para 6 of paragraph 72 of the Scheme. Otherwise, the provision may suffer notoriety as one opposed to public policy and if the provision is not read down it may render itself ultra vires the Act and the Constitution of India. All workers' who are members of the Fund have a constitutional right to property preserved under Article 300-A of the Constitution of India. The amounts lying dormant in the names of the subscribing members of Fund must be returned to them irrespective of any delay in applying for withdrawal under Paragraphs 69 or 70 as it is their hard earned money and those amounts of subscription deserve to be credited to a bank account maintained by the subscriber/member of the Fund on request unrestricted by lapse of time. The request for release or transfer of money to new found employment by migration of labour is not in the nature of a recovery suit for money restricted by period of limitation prescribed in the law of limitation. Therefore, I am not prepared to accept the contention of Mr. Goyal that the interest on money in the Inoperative Account is lost in wilderness forever to the owner.

(3.) There is yet another defence of the organization pressed into service and that is sub-para 6 of the Paragraph 60 of the Scheme deals with interest. Sub-para 6 was inserted by GSR 25 dated 15.1.2011 w.e.f. 1.4.2011 and that the interest should not be credited to the account of a member from the date which it has become Inoperative Account under the provisions of sub-para 6 of paragraph 72 of the Scheme. Paragraph 60 of the Scheme reads as follows:-