The liability to pay E.S.I. contribution and interest is determined by the effective date of the notification and the adjudication of the actual amount payable.

JUDGMENT :

ANIL KUMAR CHOUDHARY, J.

1. Heard the parties.

2. This appeal has been preferred under Section 82 of the Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 against the order dated 12.01.2012 passed by the Presiding Officer, Labour Court-cum-E.S.I. Court, Jamshedpur in E.S.I. Case No. 3 of 2002 by which the learned E.S.I. court has allowed the application filed by the applicant who is the sole respondent in this appeal filed under Section 75 (2) (a) of the E.S.I. Act, 1948, after holding that as the applicant has no knowledge about the Act before August, 1997 and the code number was allotted to him in August, 1997 vide Ext.4. Hence, the applicant could not deposit the contribution for the period in question and the act of the applicant is not deliberate act. Hence, the applicant is not liable to pay the contribution of E.SI of that period.

3. The case of the applicant in brief is that the applicant is the partnership firm and he is the contractor of TISCO Limited, Jamshedpur for executing the work of cleaning, painting and other miscellaneous work inside TISCO works. M/s. TISCO Limited is exempted from the application of provision of E.S.I. Act and the said Act was made applicable to the contractors of M/s. TISCO Limited with effect from August, 1997. There was a meeting conducted by the then Regional Director of E.S.I. and his team and the representative of M/s. TISCO Limited on 12.08.1997. All the contractors including the applicant were present. The minutes of the meeting was forwarded to the applicant with a direction to implement the provision of E.S.I. Act from 01.08.1997. Thereafter, the applicant complied with the provision of E.S.I. Act and since then, he never defaulted for complying the provision of the Act. The Enforcement Officer inspected the establishment of the applicant and found proper compliance of the Act and the applicant has been making the registers and records with respect to the compliance of the provisions of the Act. The applicant was issued with a show-cause dated 12.04.2001 by the opposite party no. 2 stating therein that the applicant has not paid the contribution amount for the period 01.10.1996 to 31.07.1997. The applicant submitted his explanation and denied the liability as computed by the opposite party no. 2. The applicant also sent a letter to the opposite party no. 1 but the reply did not meet the subjective satisfaction of the opposite party no. 2 and as per the application, the opposite party no. 2 arbitrarily computed contribution amount of Rs. 55,967/- for the period from 10/1996 to 7/1997 plus interest of Rs. 37,787/- up to 30.09.2001 and further interest payable at the rate of 15% from 01.10.2001 till the date of payment. The opposite party no. 2 sent a letter to the opposite party no. 3 for recovery of the said amount and the opposite party no. 3- Recovery Officer issued a notice to the applicant to pay the said amount of Rs. 1,03,299/-. The applicant paid dues contribution amount of Rs. 11,483/-. Hence, the computation of the dues contribution amount on the basis of 30 employees working with the applicant without any material while the applicant never employed 30 employees during the relevant period and had deposited the computed amount of Rs. 11,783/- under compulsion for the period from 10/1996 to July, 1997 i.e. 07/1997. Thus the applicant made a prayer to hold that the applicant is not liable to pay the computed amount to the corporation.

4. The opposite parties in their written show-cause challenged the maintainability of the suit on various technical grounds. The opposite parties struck to his stand of the law of the application.

5. On the basis of the rival pleadings of the parties, the E.S.I. Court formulated the following point for consideration:

“Whether the applicant is liable to pay the computed amount of contribution to the corporation?”

6. In support of its case, the applicant examined only one witness and produced the relevant documents which have been marked Ext.1 to 15 while t