Ramanujam Press is owned by a partnership. The establishment of the press was found employing 22 persons during inspection by the officers of the respondent on 31st July, 1964. On the basis of this inspection report, the respondent herein sent a communication dated 29th November, 1965, to the petitioner herein stating that the provisions of the Employees' Provident Funds Act, 1952 and the Scheme framed thereunder applied to the petitioner's establishment from 1st August, 1964, and asked the petitioner to comply with the requirements of the provisions of the Act as well as the Scheme. The petitioner put forward the contention that the Act was not applicable to the petitioner's establishment since in the petitioner's establishment there were no 20 employees who have put in at least one year's service and have worked for not less than 240 days. Since the contention of the petitioner was not accepted by the respondent, the petitioner made representations to the Central Government under S. 19-A of the Act. The Central Government, by its communication dated 21st April, 1966, came to the conclusion that the Act applied to the petitioner's establishment.

Thereafter, by a communication dated 15th December, 1966, the respondent addressed the Collector of Madras to collect a sum of Rs. 2, 224.75 by way of contributions and a sum of Rs. 85.75 by way of administrative charges from the petitioner herein under the provisions of the Revenue Recovery Act. It is at this stage the petitioner has come to this court and filed the present writ petition under article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for the issue of a writ of certiorari to quash the communication of the respondent dated 29th November, 1965, stating that the Act applied to the petitioner's establishment with effect from 1st August, 1964, and the communication dated 15th December, 1966, addressed to the Collector requesting him to recover the arrears of contribution and administrative charges under Revenue Recovery Act and copy marked to the petitioners.The contentions of the learned counsel for the petitioner in support of this writ petition are threefold. The first contention is that the provisions of the Act have no application to the petitioner's establishment since 20 or more persons were not employed in that establishment who had put in at lest one year's service or had worked for not less than 240 days in a year; 2. The administrative charges for a period earlier to the date of communication, namely, 29th November, 1965, should not be collected; 3. The communication dated 15th December, 1966, addressed to the Collector of Madras was in contravention of sub-sec. (3) of S. 7-A of the Act in that no opportunity was given to the petitioner before determining the quantum of the amount payable by the petitioner.

I shall now deal with these three contentions seriatim. As far as the first contention is concerned it is really concluded by a Bench decision of this court against the petitioner. In East India Industries (Madras) Private Ltd. v. Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, [1963 for the 26 FJR 42] a Bench of this court came to the conclusion that if for a period of one day in a year 20 or more persons were employed in the establishment that will be sufficient to attract the provisions of the Act. The learned Judges declined to accept the contention that the use of the expression "in which 20 or more persons are employed" occurring in S. 1(3)(a) of the Act denotes a continuity of employment of all the 20 person and therefore the fact that 20 or more persons were employed only for a part of the period or some of the days in the year will not be sufficient to attract the applicability of the Act. This Bench decision of this court is binding on me and therefore on the strength of this decision I must reject the first contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner.However, Mr. V. Krishnan, the learned counsel, sought to distinguish the decision by pointing out t