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Showing contexts for: generated by computer in M/S Gujral Tours & Travels Pvt Ltd vs Employees State Insurance Corporation on 4 January, 2024Matching Fragments
2. Whether the petitioner has not come to the court with clean hands as mentioned in preliminary objection no. 1 of WS of the respondent and if so, its effect ? OPR
3. Relief "
IMPUGNED ORDER:
7. Suffice to state that at this stage that the learned Trial Court on appreciation of evidence led by the parties found that on the date of inspection, a report was prepared on the spot by the SSO Ex.RW1/1, and admittedly 29 employees were found working in the Establishment and the plea of the petitioner/appellant company that KUMAR VATS Signing Date:04.01.2024 20:20:18 the said document Ex.RW 1 corresponding to Ex.PW 1/3 of their own showed that the wages/salary described therein were net payment whereas gross payment should have been considered was not accepted for want of Inspection Book in terms of Regulation 102 A of ESI General Regulations, 1950 and for its failure to prove Ex.PW-1/3 which was a computer generated print out of the Register of payment of wages and salaries ,which was held to be falling foul to Section 34 of the Indian Evidence Act. Accordingly, Issue No. 1 was decided in favour of the respondent ESIC and against the petitioner/appellant company. Further, it was held that Issue no. 2 was wrongly framed and not required to be answered. Accordingly, the petition was dismissed and the said order is, therefore, assailed in the present appeal.
9.5 Ex. PW-1/3 is computer generated printout of register of payment of wages and salaries. This printout cannot be considered as book of account in terms of Section 34 of Indian Evidence Act. During cross examination of RW-1, she repeatedly reiterated that Ex. RW-1/1 was prepared and signed by Sh. O.P. Bhatia, Manager of the petitioner. The petitioner has not specifically challenged the signatures appearing on the list Ex. RW-1/1. If it is argued that list Ex. RW-1/1/ was prepared by the Inspecting Officer RW-1 on her own, it is pertinent to observe that without going through the records of the petitioner, the Inspecting Officer could not have known the names of the employees of the petitioner. The said names in the list Ex. RW-1/1/ correspond to the account Ex. PW 1/3. This leads to the conclusion that list Ex. RW-1/1/ was either prepared by some employee(s) of the petitioner or prepared upon the instructions some employee Cs) of the petitioner. If the petitioner claims that list Ex.RW 1/1 was prepared out of the account Ex. PW 1/3, it is not clear what prevented the petitioner from directly handing over the account Ex. PW1/3 to the Inspecting Officer. The list Ex. RW-1/1 bears the stamp of the petitioner. It is not possible for the respondent's officer(s) to procure the stamp of the petitioner's business unless the same is provided by some employee(s) of the petitioner. Ex. PW 1/3 is only for the months of January and February 2009. This is an isolated document. The petitioner has not filed the bank account details of its employees to show that the amount reflected in Ex. PW 1/3 was being regularly credited to the account of the employees. It is nowhere contended by the petitioner that the employees were paid in cash.
15. It is also borne out from the record that the appellant company later produced a computer generated print out of the Register of payment of wages and salaries. PW-1 Ramesh Kalra, who was examined on behalf of the appellant company in his cross-examination showed ignorance to any inspection done on 05.02.2009 and 19.02.2009 but he did acknowledge that as on those days there were 14 employees who were drawing wages of Rs.10,000/- or less than Rs.10,000/-.
17. It is borne out from the evidence brought and proven on the record by the parties that the details of the employees and their respective salaries reflected in Ex. RW1/1 otherwise tallied with the computer generated statement Ex. PW 1/3 relied upon by the appellant / company. Be that as it may, there is no flaw in the observations by the learned Trial Court that the appellant company failed to establish that the details of the wages in Ex. RW1/1 or for that matter Ex. PW 1/3 were based on the net salary being to the employees and not gross salary.