THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.33623 of 2014 Dated: 10.11.2014 Between:
M/s.Thirumala Transport Rep. by its Managing Partner N. Praveen Kumar .. Petitioner and The Singareni Collieries Company Limited, Rep. by its Chairman and Managing Director, Singareni Bhavan, Khairatabad, Hyderabad, and others.
.. Respondents Counsel for the petitioner: Mr. Venkateshwar Varanasi Counsel for the respondents: Mr. Nandigam Krishna Rao The court made the following:
ORDER:
This writ petition is filed for the following substantive relief: “…to issue a Writ, Order or direction more the nature of Writ of Mandamus declaring the action of the respondents 1 to 3 insofar as insisting for payment of Employees Coal Mines Provident Fund by the petitioner by way of Contractor’s contribution pursuant to clause 6 of the Work Order No.7600005574 dated 20-08-2014 and the steps taken by the respondent company for deducting the same from out of the amounts payable to the petitioner towards transportation charges in accordance with the above said work order though the provisions of the Coal Mines Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1948, are not applicable to the Transport Contractor who simply undertake to transport the Coal from one place to another place as per the work order by duly declaring the Clause 6 of the Work Order No.7600005574 dated 20-08-2014 as illegal, arbitrary and contrary to the Coal Mines Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1948 and the rules made thereunder.”
At the hearing, it is agreed among the learned counsel for the parties that the issue raised in this writ petition is covered by common order dated 30.03.2011 in W.P.No.11107 of 2009 and batch, whereby this Court has disposed of those writ petitions with the following directions:
“a) The Regional Commissioner or any Officer authorized by him shall first issue a notice to the petitioners to decide whether the activity undertaken by the petitioners comes within the definition of Coal Mine. It shall be open to the petitioners to submit explanation;
b) in the event of the activity being declared as the one in coal mine, the employees shall be enrolled as members, subject to their fulfilment of the prescribed conditions, the respondents shall assign account numbers and issue cards; and the deductions shall be made with reference to the account numbers and cards so issued, periodically;
c) till such time, no deductions shall be made, but if it is held that the petitioners are liable, at a later point of time, they shall be under obligation to pay the arrears also;
d) the amount deducted from the petitioners, so far, shall be kept in FDRs and the manner in which it shall be utilized shall be decided, depending upon the outcome of the exercise undertaken above; and
e) the authority of the coal mines provident fund shall ensure that it does not deduct any amount, without reference to a particular employee, who is admitted to the provident fund.”
In view of the above, this writ petition is disposed of in terms of the aforesaid common order with the direction that the directions reproduced above shall form part of this order.
As a sequel to the disposal of the writ petition, W.P.M.P.No.42057 of 2014 shall stand disposed of as infructuous.
C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 10th November, 2014 IBL