Court No. - 32
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 19892 of 2021 Petitioner :- M/S A.K. Glass Industries And Another Respondent :- Employees State Insurance Corporation And Another Counsel for Petitioner :- Amitabh Patel,Surendra Nath Dubey Counsel for Respondent :- Rajesh Tewari
Hon'ble Rohit Ranjan Agarwal,J.
Heard Sri S.N. Dubey, learned counsel for the petitioners and Ms. Jyotsana Srivastava, learned counsel for respondent nos. 1 and 2.
This writ petition has been filed assailing the order dated 25.06.2001 passed by Assistant Director, Employees State Insurance Corporation.
The contention of learned counsel for the petitioners is that notice was initially issued on the wrong address of petitioner on 12.07.2018 which was not served upon him. Later on 03.02.2021, another notice was issued which was received by him and he sought time to file reply on 10.03.2021, to which the authorities granted time and 13.04.2021 was fixed as next date.
According to Sri Dubey as COVID-1 was at its peak in the city of Prayagraj in the second week of April, 2021 and many of the family members of the petitioner were suffering from the deadly virus and one of the family members had unfortunately passed away during this hard time and the authorities had fixed the next date as 28.05.2021 and due to lock down, petitioner could not appear before the concerned authorities and he has moved an application on 25.05.2021 through registered post, which has been brought on record as Annexure-9 to writ petition.
By an ex-parte order dated 25.06.2021, a liability has been imposed upon petitioner to the tune of Rs.1,78,679/-.
It is contended on behalf of petitioner that he is ready to appear before the authority if the said order is recalled and after hearing petitioner fresh orders may be passed.
Ms. Srivastava, learned counsel appearing for the Employees State Insurance Department submitted that petitioner has a remedy of filing an appeal under Section 45AA of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948 as the determination order has been passed under Section 45A.
Having heard learned counsel for the parties and from perusal of record, it appears to be a very hard case as the petitioner and his family had been suffering from COVID-19 and the matter was pending consideration before the authorities during the period when the Corona was at its peak.
As a special case, considering the effect of COVID-19 in city of Prayagraj, order dated 25.06.2021 is quashed and the matter is remitted back to respondent no. 2 and this Court directs the petitioner to appear before respondent no. 2 along with all the records of the case on 27.08.2021, on which date respondent no. 2 after considering the entire documents as required by him under the law shall pass necessary orders.
In view of above, writ petition stands partly allowed.
Order Date :- 13.8.2021 V.S.Singh