Court No. - 7
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 42556 of 2018 Petitioner :- M/S Super Bhootpurv Sainik Suraksha Samit Respondent :- Union Of India And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Anand Kumar Srivastava Counsel for Respondent :- A.S.G.I.,Sachindra Upadhyay,Sahab Tiwari,Sanjai Singh,Tapeswari Prasad
Hon'ble Saumitra Dayal Singh,J.
1. Heard Sri Anand Kumar Srivastava, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Sachindra Upadhyay, Sri Sahab Tiwari, Sri Sanjai Singh and Sri Tapeswari Prasad, learned counsel for the respondents.
2. At the very outset, a preliminary objection has been raised by Sri Sachindra Upadhyay, learned counsel for the respondent- Provident Fund Authority that against the impugned order dated 29.11.2017 passed under Section 7A of the Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), the petitioner has a remedy of appeal under Section 7-I of that Act.
3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the demand of defaulted contribution is wholly excessive and arbitrary and does not satisfy the basic requirements of the Act. Also, it has been submitted that the petitioner has been diligently pursuing his remedies inasmuch as against the ex-parte order dated 29.11.2017, the petitioner had filed review application, which came to be rejected by order dated 01.08.2018.
4. Without entering into the merits, it is clear that the impugned order dated 29.11.2017 is appealable. Keeping in mind the nature of objections raised by learned counsel for the petitioner, there does not exist any lack of jurisdiction though the order is claimed to be wholly illegal or erroneous.
5. Therefore, while the present writ petition is not being entertained, it is left open to the petitioner to pursue his remedy in appeal. If such appeal is filed by the petitioner within a period of two weeks from today along with a certified copy of this order, it is expected that the appellate authority may hear and decide the appeal on merits without raising any objection as to the limitation.
6. With the aforesaid observation, the present writ petition is disposed of.
Order Date :- 21.12.2018 Abhilash