Judgment:
Sambuddha Chakrabarti, J.
The petitioner joined the service of the respondent no. 7 in the year 1976 and became a member of the scheme framed under the Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (the Act, for short). A provident fund account number was allotted to him for the purpose of depositing the provident fund contributions. His share of contribution was regularly deducted from his monthly salary and the same was deposited by the respondent no. 7 along with its own share of contribution in the designated bank account for crediting to the petitioner’s provident fund account. Some time in the year 2004 the petitioner was transferred to the Bombay office of the respondent no. 7 under the jurisdiction of the Maharashtra Regional Provident Funds Commissioner and he was allotted a separate code number. His share of contribution continued to be deducted from his salary as before. The petitioner and another employee served a notice, dated March 8, 2003 upon the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, i.e., the respondent no. 3 herein in which he made a grievance that his employer had deducted the requisite amount from his salary and deposited the same to the account number allotted to him on a regular basis but they had not been receiving any statement of accounts for many years. The respondent no. 3 was requested to look into the matter and arrange to send an up-to-date statement of accounts at the earliest. Absence of response on the part of the respondents impelled them to send a reminder dated June 5, 2003 to the respondent no. 3 herein.
Now for the first time there were some movements on the part of the provident funds authorities. The respondent no. 4, i.e., the Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner West Bengal Accounts, sent a letter dated July 29, 2003 to the respondent no. 7 inter alia stating that the annual accounts up to the year 1990-91 were prepared and issued in July, 2002. The establishment was requested to submit attested xerox copies of the bank challans to enable the provident funds authorities to prepare annual accounts and release the same at an early date. The petitioner says, this was a false claim made by the respondents and since the default continued the petitioner sent a legal notice dated February 9, 2004 to the respondent no. 4. By the said letter the respondent no. 4 was directly made responsible for the non-supply of statement of accounts and the petitioner called upon him to supply all statements of accounts of the petitioner’s provident funds for the period from 1986-87 to 2002-03 within a period of 15 days from the date of receipt of the letter.
In August, 2005 the petitioner tendered resignation and was relived from his service with effect from September 9, 2005. He thereafter filed an application in the prescribed form before the respondent no. 1 for settlement and payment of all amounts accrued with interest in his provident fund account.
The respondent no. 4 by a memo dated November 29, 2005 intimated the establishment, i.e., the respondent no. 7 herein, that the application for payment of the amount accrued in the provident fund account of the petitioner could not be acted upon on the ground of huge shortfall in all the accounts of the respondent no. 7. The respondent no. 7 was thus requested to make good the short-payments immediately. A copy of this letter was also sent to the petitioner and another employee of the organisation who had also made a similar application. The strangest part of it was that the petitioner and his ex-colleague were requested to urge their ex-employer for an early deposit of the short amount as indicated in the letter.
For several years there does not seem to be any activity on the part of the respondents authorities. Suddenly in the year 2009 the provident funds authorities sent a letter to the petitioner recording the visit of an officer to his residence and requesting him to submit certain documents within three days for “an early settlement of the PF claim”.
The petitioner once again requested the authorities to let him know the provident funds balance lying to his credit up to March 31, 2004 by issuing a final settlement within 15 days from the date of the letter and to make payment of his dues at the earliest. The respondent authorities once again failed to discharge their duties by supplying him the necessary statement as well as by not making a payment of his dues. The petitioner made a complaint to the Zonal Vigilance Directorate which was forwarded by memo dated August 26, 2009 by the Deputy Director, Vigilance E.Z. to the Calcutta office and by name to the Regional Provident Funds Commissioner-I.
Thus the petitioner had filed the present petition inter alia praying for a writ in the nature of Mandamus commanding the respondents to furnish the certified true and correct statements of accounts as well as for a direction to settle and pay the correct amount payable to the petitioner on account of his provident funds dues.
The respondents nos. 2 to 6 to this petition, i.e., the provident funds authorities, have contested this present petition by filing an affidavit-in-opposition which was affirmed by the Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner (Legal). The affidavit had placed the entire blame at the door of the petitioner. The authorities have admitted that the petitioner had submitted his claim in the requisite form and that they could not settle the same due to certain “shortfall” on the part of the petitioner in submission of such claim as the requisite return had been submitted along with the claim of the petitioner. According to them the signature of the authority attesting the claim is not recorded in their office. As such the signature of the authorised signatory was required to be submitted with due authorisation and attestation. Again the return in a certain form have not been submitted for a particular year and the signature of the authority did not tally with the signature of the authorised signatory as recorded in the office and as such the claim form was returned to the petitioner in January 2007. In spite of it the petitioner did not submit the claim afresh upon fulfilling all the terms and conditions which are required to be submitted to claim the provident funds dues. It is further stated that pursuant to an enquiry the Inspector had submitted his report and the Enforcement Officer was asked to collect a certain form from the petitioner for interim payment but the petitioner did neither accept the proposal not did he accept the interim payment as reported by the Enforcement Officer on May 11, 2009 and as such the provident funds authorities were not in a position to settle the claim of the petitioner for want of certain documents and in spite of their best efforts due to non-cooperation on the part of the petitioner they were not in a position to settle his claim.
The petitioner in his reply to the said affidavit has denied the allegations made in the petition. The specific case of the petitioner is that the respondents authorities with full knowledge of the short deposit of the provident funds contributions by his ex-employer have neglected to take any step for the recovery of the short deposits in accordance with the provisions of the Act. According to the petitioner the Assistant Provident Funds Commissioner by a letter addressed to the ex-employer of the petitioner had admitted the short payment. Supply of statements of accounts is a condition precedent before settlement of the provident funds dues. He has also denied the allegation made in the report of the Enquiry Officer that the where about of the respondent no. 7 could not be found as totally false as it was known that the respondent no. 7 was carrying on business from the office given in the cause title to the petition.
Pursuant to a direction by this Court records of the case have been produced by the respondent authorities. This contains records from January, 2007 and not before that.
A large part of the case sought to be made out in the Affidavit was never informed to the petitioner before. On the other hand, what we get is an intimation to the petitioner that a huge sum of contribution have not been paid by his former employer. From the amount mentioned against each account it is clear that the huge shortage in depositing the employer’s share must have accrued over a long period of time and the respondents have not taken any step against the erring establishment. Unfortunately the petitioner who by 2005 had become an ex-employee was requested to urge his ex-employer for an early deposit of the short payment. The authorities while requesting the petitioner to request the former employer to deposit the amount had forgotten that this was never the duty of the petitioner and that the Act and the relevant Schemes contain very elaborate provisions relating to the steps to be taken under such circumstances as well as the machinery by which the authorities are duty bound to recover the amount.
Again if the allegations made in the affidavit are to be taken on their face value that the signature of the authorised signatory was not tallying and, therefore, payment could not be made, the responsibility of the authorities to correct the defect, if there were any, cannot be ignored. The responsibility lay on the authorities to make the payment and for that they were required to do everything which the statute enjoined them to do. By merely saying that the signatures did not tally the authorities cannot evade their responsibility as the affidavit is conveniently silent about the steps they had taken to rectify the same. That apart it does not appear that the respondents did take the trouble of informing the petitioner about these. A mere request to submit certain forms without any context does not justify the stand sought to be taken by them. An employee who had retired about seven years ago cannot be denied his legitimate dues on any pretext, more so when admittedly the respondents themselves had intimated the petitioner that his claim could not be acted upon for the huge shortfall in the payment of the employer and when the authorities did not inform the reasons for their inability to make the payment for something which was beyond their control.
In such view of the matter, I direct the respondents authorities to furnish a correct statement of accounts to the petitioner for the year 2003-04. The respondents authorities shall also inform the specific documents which are required to be submitted by the petitioner in order to get his Provident Funds dues within a week from the date of the communication of this order and shall settle and pay to him the entire amount lying to his credit on account of the Provident Funds dues within a period of three weeks from the date of the supply of such documents with statutory interest.
The writ petition is thus allowed.
There shall, however, be no order as to costs.
Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties on priority basis upon compliance of all requisite formalities.