IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that damages for delayed remittance of contributions under the Employees' Provident Funds Act are mandatory and do not require proof of intent or fault.

JUDGMENT :

Partha Sarathi Sen, J.

1. In this writ petition the writ petitioner has prayed for cancellation and/or revocation and/or withdrawal of the order no. WB/HWR/Damage/9516/HLY/1196(I) dated 08.12.2016 whereby and whereunder the respondent no.1/authority has imposed damages to the tune of Rs.78,39,064/- and interest of Rs.37,87,607/- under Section 14(B) and Section 7(Q) respectively of the Employees’ Provident Funds And Misc. Provisions, 1952 (hereinafter referred to as the said ‘Act’ in short) upon the writ petitioner no.1. It is pertinent to mention herein that such damages and interest have been imposed by the respondent no.1/Authority on account of alleged delay by the writ petitioner for the remittance of the contributions for the period 01.01.2014 to 30.09.2015.

2. It is undisputed that initially the writ petitioner/company was an exempted establishment under Section 17 of the said Act however, such exemption stood cancelled on and from 27.10.2010.

3. In course of hearing Mr. Majumder, learned advocate appearing on behalf of the writ petitioner submits before this Court that challenging such exemption the writ petitioner and the Board of Trustees (BOT in short) have challenged the said decision by filing a writ petition being WP No. 1755(W) of 2011 where however no favourable order was passed in favour of the writ petitioner. However, the employees of the writ petitioner company was aggrieved with the judgment as passed in the said writ petition and they carried the matter in a writ appeal.

4. Drawing attention to page no.85 of the writ petition being a show cause notice dated 10.09.2013 it is submitted by Mr. Majumder that since in the BOT there was a representative of the employees and since the said representative of the employees declined to put his signature on the cheques of the bank accounts as mentained by the BOT, there occurred a delay in transfer of past accumulation and for which the respondent/authority being the Provident Fund Authority freezed such accounts and therefore the show cause notice dated 10.09.2013 is bad in law in view of the fact that because of the aforesaid non-cooperation of the representative of the employees of the writ petitioner/company and because of freezing of the bank accounts the past accumulation fund could not be transferred to the Provident Fund Authority. Drawing attention to page nos. 90 to 92 and page nos.93 to 95 it is further submitted by Mr. Majumder that the aforementioned predicament of the writ petitioner was duly conveyed to the respondent/authorities by the writ petitioner/company as well as BOT under cover of their letter dated 25.09.2013 showing bona fide of the writ petitioner. It is submitted further by Mr. Majumder, that from page nos. 59 to 61 of the writ petition it would reveal further that the writ petitioner had made a communication with the Axis Bank Ltd. regarding change of signatures for smooth operation of the bank accounts and demat account for immediate transfer of past accumulation investment on the BOT fund to the fund of the respondent authority i.e. Provident Fund Authority.

5. In course of his submission Mr. Majumder further draws attention of this court to page nos. 156 to 159 of the writ petition. It is submitted that from the said documents it would reveal that the writ petitioner/company had submitted with the respondents/authorities the statement of accounts of Provident Fund Trust Fund as on 01.01.2014, interest accrued from 01.01.2014 to date of sale /transfer and amount remitted to EPFO. It is thus submitted that from aforesaid material it would reveal that there was no mala fide intention on the part of the writ petitioner/company to transfer past accumulation and therefore while passing an order for damages the respondent no.1 /authority ought to have exercised its discretion in favour of the writ petitioner by levying no damages upon the writ petitioner.

6. Drawing attention to page no 158 being the statement of accrued interest for secu