JAIPUR UDYOG LTD Vs. INSPECTOR PROVIDENT FUND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS batch of petition of revision raise two common questions of law and can therefore, be conveniently dealt with by a common judgment. The circumstances giving rise to these petitions may be stated as follows :

(2.) THE provident Fund Inspector, Kota, filed a number of complaints against M/s Jaipur Udyog Ltd. Sawai Madhopur (hereinafter called the petitioner) and some of its officers in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Sawai Madhopur on the allegations that they were guilty of contravention of the requirements of the Employees Provident Fund Scheme, 1952 (hereinafter called the Scheme) by reason of their fai ure to pay to the Fund certain dues and that they had thus committed offences against clause 76 of the Scheme from time to time. During the pendency of these complaints,, the State Government in exercise of its powers under section 3, Rajasthan Relief Undertakings (Special Provisions) Act, 1961 (herein after called the Act) declared the petitioner to be a relief under taking for the purposes of the Act. THE petitioner, thereupon, made respective applications in the course of hearing of those complaints claiming temporary immunity from those prosecutions on the basis of section 4 (1) (b) of the Act. By separate but similar orders, dated April 18, 1978, the trial court dismissed all these applications holding that the immuinty conferred by section 4 (1) (b) of the Act is not available against a prosecution for contravention of the requirements of the Scheme and that, in any case, it was only the petitioner, and not its officers, who had been declared to be a relief undertakings, and therefore, the officers could not at all claim exemption from such prosecutions.

(3.) IN the result, these petitions are allowed and consequently it is ordered that all the 14 complaints giving rise to these petitions shall not be proceeded with during the period in which the petitioner remains a relief undertaking. .