1. Provident Fund Commissioner (Enforcement) Jammu, issued various notices to the functionaries of the State Forest Corporation, calling upon it to deposit the contribution, it was required to pay for the workers engaged by the Contractor(s)/Mate(s), of the Corporation, for its work of extraction of timber, under the Jammu and Kashmir Employees Provident Funds (And Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1961. Failure of the Corporation to deposit the contribution, ultimately resulted in initiation of recovery proceedings against it, by the Special Tehsildar (Recovery) Assistant Collector Ist Class, Jammu.

2. The State Forest Corporation, hereinafter to be referred as the "Corporation", filed OWP no. 959/2003 seeking quashing of the notices issued by the Special Tehsildar, on a short ground, that despite Corporations approaching the Commissioner Provident Funds Office, it had not informed it about the names of the workers for whom the contribution was payable, And that the recovery proceedings initiated at the behest of the Commissioner, were bad in law, being in violation of the provisions of Section 8-A of the Jammu and Kashmir Employees Provident Funds (And Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1961, hereinafter to be referred as the "Act".

3. During the pendency of this writ petition, the Corporation filed another writ petition, OWP no. 37/2007, seeking direction against the Provident Fund Commissioner, not to proceed against it under the provisions of the Act, besides seeking quashing of the recovery notices which the Deputy Provident Fund Commissioner had issued to it, from time to time, including the final notice of November 10, 2006, directing recovery of an amount of Rs. 6,09,525/- from the Corporation, being the contribution payable by it under the Act.

4. The case set up by the Corporation, in this writ petition, inter alia, is that, in terms of the provisions of the Act, the Corporation was not under any obligation to deposit the contribution for those workers, who had been engaged for corporations work, by its contractor or mate, and that, its liability to deposit contribution in terms of the Act, extended only to those workers who were its Permanent employees, for whom it had been regularly depositing its contribution with the Provident Fund Commissioner.

5. The plea which the Corporation has raised in its OWP no. 959/2003, that the Provident Fund Commissioner had erred in omitting to follow the procedure prescribed under Section 8-A of the Act before issuing recovery notice to the Corporation, has been reiterated in this writ petition as well.

6. The Jammu and Kashmir State Forest Corporation Labour Union and its Chairman/Legal Advisor and General Secretary, have contested the Corporations writ petitions saying that the Corporations plea regarding non-application of the provisions of the Act to the employees, engaged by the Contractor/Mate of the Corporation, was untenable, in that, the Corporation, in terms of the provisions of the Act, was under a statutory obligation to deposit the contribution which was payable to the workers engaged by the Contractor/Mate, for Corporation work, and that the recovery proceedings initiated against the Corporation did not suffer from any error of law.

7. As common question of law as to the legality or otherwise of the recovery notices of the Commissioner Provident Fund had arisen in these two writ petitions, so both these petitions were heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment, dealing with the common question of law aforementioned and the question as to the liability or otherwise of the Corporation to pay the contribution under the Act, for the workers engaged by its contractor/mate, which would govern the aforementioned two writ petitions.

8. The Corporations learned counsel, in OWP no. 37/2007, Mr. B.M. Bhardwaj, referring to the definition of "basic wages", appearing in Section 2(a) of the Act, submitted that as the Corporation had not entered into any contract of employm

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