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VIKRAMAJIT SEN,J.

1 Leave granted.

2 This Appeal assails the judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court at Calcutta which had allowed the Appeal preferred against the judgment of the learned Single Judge, who in turn had applied and implemented the opinion of the Division Bench as expressed in Darjeeling Dooars Plantation Ltd. vs Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, 1995 ILLJ 939 Cal. In the impugned Order, the present Division Bench had the advantage of perusing the view taken by a Special Bench of three learned Judges of the Calcutta High Court in Dalgaon Agro Industries Ltd. vs Union of India, (2006) 1 CALLT 32 (HC), which was decided on 24.06.2005. The Special Bench was constituted in view of a reference submitted by a Single Judge in Writ Petition No. 16037(W), who had entertained an opinion which differed with three earlier decisions rendered by Single Judges in three separate matters. Along with the aforestated writ petition, an appeal pending before a Division Bench against one of those Single Judge decisions was also taken up by the Special Bench. In this Appeal, therefore, we have primarily to consider whether the exposition of law by the Special Bench in Dalgaon Agro Industries Ltd. is the logical and acceptable view. 3 The factual matrix obtaining in the case at hand, succinctly stated, is that M/s. Mathura Tea Estate, P.O. Mathura Bagan, District Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, owned by Saroda Tea Company Ltd., indubitably an establishment covered by the Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (‘the EPF Act’ for brevity), had defaulted in remitting the contributions and accumulations payable under the EPF Act and the sundry Schemes formulated under that statute. It was in those circumstances that the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner (‘RPF Commissioner’ for brevity), Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, had issued notices to M/s. Mathura Tea Estate enabling it to show cause against the imposition of ‘damages’ as envisaged under Section 14B of the EPF Act. M/s. Mathura Tea Estate requested for a waiver of damages, which request came to be rejected on the predication that the said establishment was neither a sick unit nor the subject of any scheme for rehabilitation sanctioned by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction. In the duration of those proceedings, the management of M/s. Mathura Tea Estate under the erstwhile ownership of Saroda Tea Company Ltd. was taken over by Eveready Industries (India) Ltd, which thereafter discharged the liability of entire principal sum of Provident Fund dues to the tune of Rs.75,76,000/- pertaining to the period prior to the takeover in consonance with the Memorandum of Understanding entered into between it and Saroda Tea Company Ltd. Significantly, the said Memorandum of Understanding also included a clause to the effect that any damages payable for the failure to deposit the dues and accumulations under the EPF Act would be the exclusive liability of Saroda Tea Company Ltd making it palpably evident that the appellant was fully alive to this liability. It is in these premises that Eveready Industries (India) Ltd. undauntedly contended before the RPF Commissioner, Jalpaiguri, in the event in futility, that proceedings under Section 14B of the EPF Act against it were unjustified as it was not the “employer” defined under Section 2(e) of the EPF Act, which defaulted in paying contributions. The RPF Commissioner has recorded that M/s. Mathura Tea Estate had defaulted in payment of dues for the period from March, 1989 to February, 1998, which assertion of fact is not in dispute. It held that on a conjoint reading of Sections 14B and 17B of the EPF Act it was clear that damages under Section 14B were recoverable jointly and severally from Saroda Tea Company Ltd. as well as Eveready Industries (India) Ltd. After tabulating the rates of damages, i.e. percentage of arrears per annum depending on the period of default, damages were assessed at Rs.70,37,950; and it was further directed that failure to deposit penal damages within the stipulated period would attract the provisions of Section 7Q of the EPF Act, thereby enhancing the liability to include simple interest at the rate of 12 per cent per annum on the damages. It was this Order of the RPF Commissioner that failed to find favour with the learned Single Judge of the High Court at Calcutta, who set aside the Commissioner’s Orders and directed the said Authority to reconsider the issues within a period of three months. The learned Single Judge had drawn reliance from the ruling reported as The Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Mangalore vs Karnataka Forest Plantations Corporation Ltd., Bangalore, 2000 (1) LLJ 1134, which had ruled that on an interpretation of Section 17B the transferee employer would be liable to pay all outstanding contributions even for the period preceding the transfer, but it could not be fastened with punitive liability for acts of omission or commission of the previous employer for the period anterior to the transfer. It will bear reiteration that in terms of the judgment of the Division Bench impugned before us, the decision of the learned Single Judge in its own turn was reversed on the application of the dictum of the Special Three-Judge Bench in Dalgaon Agro Industries Ltd.

Provided that the liability of the transferee shall be limited to the value of the assets obtained by him by such transfer.”

6 We shall briefly discuss a decision of this Court namely, Sayaji Mills Ltd. vs. Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, 1984 (Supp) SCC 610, even though the questions before this Court are disparate in quotient. The management/owners of the Sayaji Mills had contended that since the factory had been purchased in 1955 in certain liquidation proceedings and the period of three years had not elapsed from the date of its establishment, the EPF Act would have no applicability to it under unamended Section 16(1)(b) of the Act. This Court observed that the statute is a beneficent legislation and any interpretation facilitating the evasion of its provisions should be abjured, as employers would “spare no ingenuity in seeking to deprive the employees of all the benefits conferred upon them”; that the old establishment should virtually have come to an end for the EPF Act to apply afresh; and most significantly, that the said Act is made applicable to the factory in contradistinction to its owner. Once this rationale is applied to the present conundrum, it becomes apparent that the inter se covenants between the Eveready Industries (India) Ltd. and the erstwhile owners viz. Saroda Tea Company Ltd. would not insulate the former from the rigours of damages imposed by the EPF Act. Damages must be calculated, it is plain, and be recovered by the Authority in the most efficacious and convenient manner. This decision, Sayaji Mills Ltd., was not brought to the notice of the Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court in Karnataka Forest Plantations Corporation Limited, otherwise it would not have endeavoured to explore which party/employer was ‘guilty’ of the infraction of the statutory provisions. The reasoning of the Karnataka decision is evidently flawed and runs counter to the intendment of the EPF Act as is crystal clear from a perusal of its Preamble (supra); and manifests the ingenuity that employers may devise to circumvent liability. 7 Mr. Jayant Bhushan, learned Senior Counsel for the Appellant has sought sustainment for his submissions from Employees’ State Insurance Corporation vs HMT Ltd. (2008) 3 SCC 35, but in our consideration, in vain. In that case, the ESIC raised a claim for deposit of interest on outstanding contributions of the management under the ESIC Act and the concerned Regulations, and in addition thereto levied damages in terms of Section 85B of the Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 (‘ESIC Act’ for brevity). Section 85B of the ESIC Act is essentially para materia Section 14B of the EPF Act, and therefore this decision assumes great importance. The submission of the HMT Management was that damages ought not to be levied, since Section 85B was an enabling provision and did not intend to make levy of damages mandatory. We shall reproduce for facility of reference and comparison, the statutory provision of ESIC Act, 1948 to spotlight the legal nodus with which we are presently engrossed – 85B. Power to recover damages. – (1) Where an employer fails to pay the amount due in respect of any contribution or any other amount payable under this Act, the Corporation may recover from the employer by way of penalty such damages not exceeding the amount of arrears as may be specified in the regulations:

10 There is no gainsaying that criminal liability remains steadfastly fastened to the actual perpetrator and cannot be transferred by any compact between persons or even by statute. But this incontrovertible legal principle does not support or validate the contention of Mr. Jayant Bhushan, Learned Senior Advocate for the Appellants, that damages levied in terms of Section 14B of the EPF Act cannot be foisted onto his clients. Sections 14, 14A, 14AA, 14AB and 14AC of the EPF Act are the provisions postulating prosecution; in contradistinction Section 14B contemplates the power to “recover from the employer by way of penalty such damages, not exceeding the amount of arrears, as may be specified in the Scheme”. It is true that it is not a river but a mere rivulet that segregates and distinguishes the legal concepts of damages or compensatory damages or exemplary damages or deterrent damages or punitive damages or retributory damages. We shall abjure from writing a dissertation on this compelling legal nodus; save to clarify that modern jurisprudence recognizes that the imposition of punitive damages, quintessentially quasi-criminal in character, can be resorted to even in civil proceedings to deter wilful wrongdoing by making an admonished example of the wrongdoer. This is the essential purpose, it seems to us, of Section 14B of the EPF Act, and an imposition within its confines does not assume criminal prosecution so as to stand proscribed insofar as transfer of establishment from one management/employer to its successor is concerned.

11 It has also been argued that damages as postulated in Section 14B would not be transferable under Section 17B. This argument has to be stated only to be rejected for the reason that Section 17B specifically speaks of “the contributions and other sums due from the employer under any provision of this Act or the Scheme” (emphasis added). The proviso to Section 17B indeed clarifies the position inasmuch as it restricts and/or limits the liability of the transferee up to the date of the transfer to the value of the assets obtained by him through such transfer. 12 We are also not impressed by the argument addressed by Mr. Bhushan to the effect that damages under Section 14B are not jointly and separately recoverable from the erstwhile and the present managements under Section 17B as Section 14B moves in its own and independent orbit. Several amendments have been made to the EPF Act so far as the fasciculous of Sections 7A to Section 7Q is concerned. This is also true of the pandect containing Sections 14A, 14AA, 14AB, 14AC, 14B and 14C; and for that matter Sections 17A, 17AA and 17B. Where such widespread amendments and changes are incorporated in a statute, it is always salutary and advisable to reposition the provisions and number them sequentially and logically. The argument that the phrase “determination of amounts due from any employer” is found in Section 7A as well as in Section 17B is not factually correct. Section 17B speaks of “contributions and other sums dues from the employer under any provision of this Act …….”; the latter Section is, therefore, wider in ambit than the previous one. In our opinion, Section 14B is complete in itself so far as the computation of damages is concerned. It is conceivable that the money due from an employer would have to be calculated under Section 7A, and in the event the default or neglect of the employer is contumacious and contains the requisite mens rea and actus reus yet another exercise of computation has to be undertaken under Section 14B. Where the Authority is of the opinion that damages under Section 14B need to be imposed, the computations would come within the purview of Section 14B and it would be recoverable jointly and severally from the erstwhile as well as the current managements. A perusal of the Appeals Section, namely, 7I is illustrative of the fact that these exercises are distinct from each other as per the enumerations found in the first sub-Section of Section 7I. It also appears logical to us, in the wake of the numerous and different dates of amendments, that Section 7A(2) would also be available to proceedings under Section 14B of the Act. The applicability of Civil Procedure Code, 1908 to proceedings under Section 14B has not specifically been barred by the statute. 13 It is necessary to clarify that Eveready Industries (India) Ltd. had in the interregnum of this litigation changed its name to Mcleod Russel India Ltd. In view of our above analysis, it is our considered opinion that the impugned Judgment deserves to be upheld. It contains a detailed and logical exposition of facts as well as the law pertaining to the present dispute. We also approve the pithy observations of the RPF Commissioner, Jalpaiguri in the subject Order that failure on the part of the employers to make remittances of accumulations and contributions, undermines the objectives and purposes of the statute. We underscore that the liability of the Fund to pay interest to subscribers regardless of whether employers have paid their dues, runs relentlessly. The Commissioner has specifically recorded that he has taken a lenient view in the matter and has eschewed imposition of damages to the extent of 100 per cent of the arrears even though this is envisaged by the EPF Act. The Appellant-Petitioner has, in the circumstances of the case, been also rightly burdened with the payment of interest under Section 7Q of the EPF Act. Accordingly, the Appeal is dismissed and the interim Orders are recalled. Although, it is our opinion that the Appeal is wholly devoid of merit, we refrain from imposing costs.