RAMESH SINGHANIA Vs. UNION OF INDIA UOI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Heabcas Corpus Petition has been filed by the petitioner Ramesh Singhania through his friend N. C. Jain, who was arrested by the respondent No. 3 Shri R. D. Sharma -The Recovery Officer-cum-Assistant Commissioner. Regional Provident Fund at Bikaner on May 7, 1996 who according to the petitioner did not disclose any reason to him prior to his detention and arrested him without any warrant of arrest. It has been alleged by him that on May 7, 1996, the respondent No. 3 alongwith Shri R. S. Pareek-Enforcement Officer and two unknown persons, who claimed themselves as officers of the Rajasthan Provident Fund Organisation, forcibly overpowered the petitioner Ramesh Singhania and pushed him into a hired jeep bearing a taxi number and was transported to the District Jail, Bikaner. The Jail authorities, however, refused to lodge the petitioner in jail whereupon he was taken to the Circuit House and confined there in a room. The friends and relatives of the petitioner objected to this action of the respondents, who were then informed that the petitioner has been arrested on account of non-payment of the dues payable under the Employees Provident Fund and Misc. Provisions Act, 1952 (hereinafter to be referred as the 'act of 1952') and in order to recover the dues, which was due against the concern belonging to him and his late father Shri Hanuman P. Singhania and late mother Srnt. Draupadi Devi. He was arrested and put under detention. Thereafter the petitioner was shifted to the District Jail, Bikaner at about 12. 00 noon on May 8, 1996. This habeas corpus petition was thereafter filed by the next friend of the petitioner Shri N. C. Jain and after a preliminary hearing to the matter, the petitioner was granted bail by a Bench of this Court.

(2.) ON further scrutiny of the circumstances due to which the petitioner was arrested, it has been traced out that the petitioner had been arrested since the petitioner's late father Shri Hanuman P. Singhania and his late mother Smt. Draupadi Devi in the capacity as an employer of the establishment had been directed to deposit atleast Rs. one lac against the alleged dues of late Shri Hanuman P. Singhania. The pctitioner-Ramesh Singhania, however came out with the plea that he had absolutely no concern with the business of his late father Shri Hanuman P. Singhania or his late mother Smt. Draupadi Devi and he was not aware on what account, the amount was demanded from him.

(3.) THE petitioner, however inspite of his plea was not produced before any Court after his arrest and he has alleged that he was forced to sign on certain papers which he refused. He has further come out with the plea that he had nothing to do with the business of either his father Shri Hanuman P. Singhania or his late mother Smt. Draupadi Devi since his father Shri Hanuman P. Singhania used to do business of mining and apparently had two mining leases in his favour and after his death on July 7, 1990 Smt. Draupadi Devi mother of the petitioner Shri Ramesh Singhania and wife of late Shri Hanuman P. Singhania inherited the properties of her husband on the basis of a will executed by Shri Hanuman Prasad Singhania-the father of the petitioner Ramesh Singhania. One of the lease was bearing No. 13/74 and the other lease was bearing No. 14/66 whieh was cancelled by the State Government on July 24, 1980 and Smt. Draupadi during her life time had also filed at suit against the State Government-Mining Department against cancellation which is pending. Late Smt. Draupadi Devi, however, continued to carry on the business in pursuance of the second lease bearing No. 13/74 until she expired on December 21, 1995. The petitioner's plea that at no point of time, either before or after the death of his mother and father, he was ever involved in their business in order to justify that his arrest is wholly illegal, unjustified and contrary to law. He has also further stated that no show-cause notice was ever served upon him under the provisions of the Act of 1952 and by no stretch of imagination or argument can he be treated as employer in relation to the dues which are outstanding against the employer even if he be his father.