JUDGMENT - (1) The petitioner company is a public joint stock company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, 1913. the petitioner company carries on business of manufacturing and selling textile piece goods. The petitioner company in the course of its business employs a large number of workers. Between 30-10-1955 and 15-2-1957 the petitioner company terminated the services of 41 employees. Some of the persons whose services were terminated were operatives and some were the Industrial Court under S. 36(3) of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946, applicable to the petitioner company, provide by order No. 19(a) that the employment of any permanent operative may be terminated by fourteen days notice or by payment of thirteen days wages in lieu of notice. The Standing Orders applicable to clerks on payment of one months pay in lieu of notice. The Central Provident Fund Commissioner considered that the petitioner company was liable to pay provident fund contribution in respect of the amounts paid as aforesaid on the termination of the services of the aforesaid operatives and clerks. The Regional Provident Fund Commissioner issued notices requiring payment of the amounts representing the petitioners companys share as well as the employees share of the provident fund contribution from the petitioner company in connection with the amounts paid as aforesaid. The petitioner company denied its liability to pay the same and declined to pay the same. The amounts claimed were sought to be recovered from the petitioner company by the coercive machinery available under S. 8 of the Employees Provident Funds Act, 1952. The petitioner company has challenged the action of the authorities in requiring payment of the said amounts and in seeking to recover the same.

(2) The petitioner company has filed the petition for the issue or a writ of certiorari or other appropriate writ or direction or order under Art. 226 of the Constitution against the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, the State of Bombay and the Collector of Bombay, calling for the records of the case and for quashing and setting, aside the first respondents order relating to their demand of these amounts and the second and third respondents demand for recovery of the said alleged dues. The petitioner company has also prayed for the issued of a writ of mandamus or other writ of direction or order under Art. 226 or an order under S. 45 of the Specific Relief Act against the first and third respondents requiring them and their successors in office to withdraw and/or cancel the said orders and the said notices. The petitioners Company has also prayed for the issue of a writ of prohibition or any other appropriate writ or direction under AT. 226 of the Constitution restraining respondents Nos. 2 and 3 "from enforcing or taking any proceedings in enforcement of the recovery of the amounts" mentioned in the said notices.

(3) It is not disputed that the service of the operatives stood determined on payment of thirteen days wages in lieu of notice and that the contract of employment did not subsist during the period of thirteen days after payment. It is also not disputed that the services of the clerks stood determined on payment of one months pay in lieu of notice and that the contract of employment did not subsist during the period of one month after such payment. In my view, words "thirteen days wages" and "one months pay" appearing in the Standing Orders refer merely to the quantum of payment to be made for the immediate termination of the services of the employees without notice.

(4) It is urged on behalf of the respondents that the Standing Orders constituted the terms of the contract of employment between the employer and the employees, that what is payable by the company for terminating the services of an employee under the Standing Orders constitutes "wages" in the case of an operative and "pay" in the case of a clerk, and that the amounts so paid are amounts in respect whereo

Click Here to Read the rest of this document