ROXY CINEMA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) There can never be meeting of minds between the Assessing Authority and the assessed. The Assessing Authorities feel they have a task to enforce the law, as provided for in the statute, i.e. Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952. The resistance put up by the assessee however is in the manner in which the assessment has been made and the liability, fixed devoid of established and recognized procedure. Petitioner was an establishment, engaged in the business of running a cinema hall in the name of M/s. Roxy Cinema, located at Motihari in the district of East Champaran. They have been brought under the ambit of the Provident Fund Act, as the establishment was covered with PF Code No. BR 783 allotted to them. Some complaints with regard to non-compliance, non-deposit of the contributions made by the employees as well as the contribution of the employer became the bone of contention. Several proceedings were initiated earlier and may be under certain threat or coercion, compliance was also done, details of which are not required to be noted in this part of the order.

(2.) The issue now is the assessment, which has been made in the purported exercise of power vested under Section 7-A to the Provident Fund Commissioner and the order passed by him on 29-10-2004, contained in Annexure-1.

(3.) Contention of learned senior counsel, representing the petitioner, is that any liability which is decided or fixed upon an establishment must be based on adequate evidence of, who are the beneficiaries or who the employees are, who are entitled to the benefit of such deductions or deposit, to be made by the establishment. A wishy-washy kind of enquiry merely because the assessee was trying to stone-wall or resist the enquiry may not absolve the Assessing Authority to do what is required to be done by him under law. Very wide powers have been vested in the said authority to do the job or enforce the law in case of alleged evasiveness or default on the part of an establishment.