2026 LLR 229
ORISSA HIGH COURT
Hon'ble Mr. V. Narasingh, J.
W.P. (C) No. 23220/2015, Dt/– 22-12-2025

The Director, Directorate of Printing, Stationery and Publication
v.
The Presiding Officer, E.P.F. Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi and Others

EMPLOYEES PROVIDENT FUNDS – Section 7A – EPF Authority passed an order assessing the EPF Contributions under section 7A of the Act – Petitioner challenged order of the EPF Authority by filing petition before EPF Appellate Tribunal but failed – Petitioner has challenged order of lower Authorities in writ petition – Held, against the order passed by EPF Authority, petitioner also filed review under section 7B of the Act but could not succeed – Impugned order was issued on 01-03-2013 – Petitioner filed review on 04-04-2013 under section 7B of the Act which was rejected on 12-11-2013 – Petitioner challenged orders of the EPF Authority in writ petition – Matter was remanded back for fresh hearing by setting aside orders of the lower authorities – EPF Authority considered all relevant documents and passed order for the period from 01/1994 to 02/2012 in accordance with the provisions of the Act – Petitioner is also liable to pay interest under section 7Q of the Act and damages under section 14B of the Act – Petitioner challenged order of the EPF Authority in writ petition instead availing remedy of statutory appeal – Writ petition was disposed of granting liberty to the petitioner to file an appeal before the Tribunal along with certified copy of this Order and all documents by registered post within fifteen days – Appeal was filed on 01-09-2015 after expiry of 15 days limitation as given by the writ court – Since the appeal was not filed within 15 days, the same was rejected at the threshold thereby affirming the order passed under section 7A of the Act imposing interest in terms of section 7Q of Act – Petitioner has against filed writ petition against order of the Tribunal – Held, Writ Court have no power to condone delay – Provisions of section 5 and 14 of the Limitation Act would not apply – Writ Petition is accordingly dismissed. Paras 14 to 18

For Petitioner: Mr. C.R. Swain, AGA.

For Respondents: Mr. S. Das and Mr. B. Barik, Advocates.

IMPORTANT POINTS

• An employer-establishment has to remit EPF contributions within prescribed limitation, since delayed remittance will attract damages.
• Appeal against the order of the EPF Authority, if any, is to be filed within prescribed limitation of 60 days which may be extended by the EPF Appellate Tribunal further upto 60 days subject to sufficient cause to the satisfaction of the Appellate Tribunal.
• Condonation of delay in filing appeal beyond prescribed maximum limitation of 120 (60+60) days, is not permissible either by any Tribunal or even by the Writ Court.
• For delayed remittance of EPF contributions, the employer is not liable only for damages but also interest @ 12% per annum.
• For challenging order of the EPF Authority the proper forum is the EPF Appellate Tribunal and not Writ Court.
• Writ Petition against the order of the EPF Authority is not maintainable without exhausting statutory remedy of appeal.
• Where power of condoning delay is specified under any special statute, the general provisions of section 5 and 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 would have no application in cases where appellate and revisional authority is not a Court.
• When an order passed by the EPF authority is challenged directly before the High Court, the appeal has to be preferred within the time period afforded by the High Court.
• When the High Court did not provide for any extension of time, the Tribunal could not have entertained such appeal.

Note: This judgment is still relevant as the Employees' Provident Fund Appellate Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 1997 will continue to remain in force till a year after the notification of the Code on Social Security, 2020.

Judgment

V. Narasingh, J.–1. Heard Mr. Swain, learned Additional Government Advocate for the Petitioner and Mr. Das and Mr. Barik for the Opposite Parties.

2. This writ petition has been filed under Article 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India assailing the order dated 17-09-2015 passed by the Employees Provident Fund Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi (Opposite Party No. 1) in ATA No. 1011(10)/2015 refusing to admit the appeal filed by the Petitioner-Establishment against the order dated 12-11-2014 passed under section 7A of the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (hereinafter referred to as ‘Act 1952') on the ground of limitation.

3. Before considering the rival contentions, it would be apposite to refer to the relevant provisions of Act 1952;

“ 7A. Determination of moneys due from employers. —(1) The Central Provident Fund Commissioner, any Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner, any Deputy Provident Fund Commissioner, any Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, or any Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner may, by order,—

(a) in a case where a dispute arises regarding the applicability of this Act to an establishment, decide such dispute; and

(b) determine the amount due from any employer under any provision of this Act, the Scheme or the Pension Scheme or the Insurance Scheme, as the case may be,

and for any of the aforesaid purposes may conduct such inquiry as he may deem necessary.

(2) The officer conducting the inquiry under sub-section (1) shall, for the purposes of such inquiry, have the same powers as are vested in a court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (5 of 1908), for trying a suit in respect of the following matters, namely:—

(a) enforcing the attendance of any person or examining him on oath;

(b) requiring the discovery and production of documents;

(c) receiving evidence on affidavit;

(d) issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses;

and any such inquiry shall be deemed to be a judicial proceeding within the meaning of sections 193 and 228, and for the purpose of section 196, of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860).

(3) No order shall be made under sub-section (1), unless the employer concerned is given a reasonable opportunity of representing his case.

(3A) Where the employer, employee or any other person required to attend the inquiry under sub-section (1) fails to attend such inquiry without assigning any valid reason or fails to produce any document or to file any report or return when called upon to do so, the officer conducting the inquiry may decide the applicability of the Act or determine the amount due from any employer, as the case may be, on the basis of the evidence adduced during such inquiry and other documents available on record.

(4) Where an order under sub-section (1) is passed against an employer ex parte , he may, within three months from the date of communication of such order, apply to the officer for setting aside such order and if he satisfies the officer that the show-cause notice was not duly served or that he was prevented by any sufficient cause from appearing when the inquiry was held, the officer shall make an order setting aside his earlier order and shall appoint a date for proceeding with the inquiry:

Provided that no such order shall be set aside merely on the ground that there has been an irregularity in the service of the show-cause notice if the officer is satisfied that the employer had notice of the date of hearing and had sufficient time to appear before the officer.

Explanation .—Where an appeal has been preferred under this Act against an order passed ex parte and such appeal has been disposed of otherwise than on the ground that the appellant has withdrawn the appeal, no application shall lie under this sub-section for setting aside the ex parte order.

(5) No order passed under this section shall be set aside on any application under sub-section (4) unless notice thereof has been served on the opposite party.

xxx xxxx xxx

7-I. Appeals to Tribunal. —(1) Any person aggrieved by a notification issued by the Central Government, or an order passed by the Central Government or any authority, under the proviso to sub-section (3), or sub-section (4), of section 1, or section 3, or sub-section (1) of section 7A, or section 7B except an order rejecting an application for review referred to in sub-section (5) thereof, or section 7C, or section 14B, may prefer an appeal to a Tribunal against such notification or order. (Emphasized)

(2) Every appeal under sub-section (1) shall be filed in such form and manner, within such time and be accompanied by such fees, as may be prescribed.

xxx xxxx xx x (Emphasi zed)

7Q. Interest payable by the employer. —The employer shall be liable to pay simple interest at the rate of twelve per cent. per annum or at such higher rate as may be specified in the Scheme on any amount due from him under this Act from the date on which the amount has become so due till the date of its actual payment:

Provided that higher rate of interest specified in the Scheme shall not exceed the lending rate of interest charged by any scheduled bank.

7(2) of the Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 1997 :—

“ 7. Fee, time for filing appeal, deposit of amount due on filing appeal. —(1) xxx xxx xxx

(2) Any person aggrieved by a notification issued by the Central Government or an order passed by the Central Government or any other authority under the Act, may within 60 days from the date of issue of the notification/order, prefer an appeal to the Tribunal.

Provided that the Tribunal may, if it is satisfied that the appellant was prevented by sufficient cause from preferring the appeal within the prescribed period, extend the said period by a further period of 60 days.

Provided further that no appeal by the employer shall be entertained by a Tribunal unless he has deposited with the Tribunal a Demand Draft payable in the Fund and bearing 75 per cent of the amount due from him as determined under section 7A.

Provided also that the Tribunal may for reasons to be recorded in writing, waive or reduce the amount to be deposited under section 7-O. ” (Emphasi zed)

4. Admittedly, this is the third journey of the Petitioner-the State Establishment to this Court.

5. Liability of the Petitioner-Establishment was determined by an enquiry held under section 7A of the Act, 1952 on 27-02-2013. The said order was issued on 01-03-2013. The Petitioner employer filed an application on 04-04-2013 under section 7B of the Act, 1952 for review of the said order. Such application was rejected on 12-11-2013. The Petitioner employer filed W.P. (C) No. 1005 of 2014 before this Court for quashing of the orders dated 27-02-2013 and 07-11-2013 and this Court by order dated 04-08-2014 quashed the said order and remanded back the matter for fresh hearing and after adjudication, the following order dated 12-11-2014 under section 7A was passed which is culled out hereunder for convenience of reference;

“Therefore, I, S.N. Bhuyan, Asst. Provident Fund Commissioner, Orissa having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case and having considered all the matters involved therein hereby determine the following dues against M/s. Director, Printing, Stationery & Publication, Odisha on account of Provident Fund, Pension Fund and Insurance Fund contribution and Administrative Charges towards Provident Fund and Insurance Fund for the period from 01/1994 to 02/2012 in accordance with the provisions of the EP.F. & M.P. Act, 1952 and the Schemes framed there under.

In addition to the above, the establishment is liable to pay interest under section 7Q of the Act @ 12% as on date of remittance of dues/date of assessment of dues which continues to accrue till its actual payment and is exclusive of Penal Damages under section 14B of the Act Further if I have reason to believe in future that any amount has escaped determination, I shall reopen the and pass appropriate orders determining the amount due from the employer under section 7C of the Act.

Interest under section 7Q

I further order, that the aforesaid amount shall be paid by the establishment in respective accounts within a period of 15 days from the date of receipt of this order and the receipted copy of the challans/D.Ds be produced in support thereof failing which, the same shall be recovered in the manner prescribed in section 8B to 8G of the Act. Further, the establishment is required to submit the statutory returns as prescribed for the entire period. This will be without prejudice to any other action that may lie under the provisions of the law for which the establishment has already rendered itself liable.

This order is without prejudice to action under section 7C & 14B of the Act.

xxx xxx xxx”

6. Instead of availing the statutory remedy of appeal as detailed above, the Petitioner challenged the aforesaid order passed under 7A of the Act, 1952 and interest under section 7Q of the said Act to the tune of Rs. 39,10,648/- and Rs. 45,92,360/- respectively by filing W.P.(C) No. 12001 of 2015.

7. This Court by order dated 10-07-2015 taking note of the schematic arrangement of the Act providing effective statutory remedy disposed of the same by the following order;

“Challenge is made to the order dtd. 12-11-2014 passed by the Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner under section 7A of the Employees Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act, 1952”)

Heard learned Counsel for the petitioner.

Against the said order, appeal lies to the Employees Provident Fund Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi under section 7-I of the Act.

Learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner will file an appeal under section 7(I) of the Act before the Employees Provident Fund Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi and till disposal of the same, the Opp. Parties may be directed not to take any coercive action against it.

In view of the same, this Court disposes of the writ application granting liberty to the petitioner to file an appeal before the learned Tribunal. For the said purpose the petitioner will send a copy of the appeal memo along with the certified copy of this Order and all the documents to the learned Tribunal, New Delhi by registered post within a period of fifteen days from today. After receipt of the same, the learned Tribunal shall do well to assign the number and dispose of the appeal on merit after affording opportunity of hearing to the petitioner at its Circuit Bench to be held at Bhubaneswar. For a period of thirty days, no coercive action shall be taken against the petitioner.” (Emphasized)

8. It would be apt to note that this Court while relegating the Petitioner to invoke the statutory remedy directed that no coercive action shall be taken for a period of 30 days in the light of its order extracted herein above that the appeal shall be filed “within a period of fifteen days from today”.

9. Admittedly, the appeal was filed on 01-09-2015 after expiry of 15 days prescription as imposed by this Court. Admittedly no extension of time was sought from this Court.

10. By the impugned order at Annexure-1, since the appeal was not preferred within the time frame as stipulated by this Court, the same was rejected at the threshold thereby affirming the order passed under section 7A and also interest component as imposed in terms of section 7Q of Act, 1952.

11. It is submitted by the learned State counsel appearing for the Petitioner that certified copy of the order of this Court granting 15 days time was received on 04-08-2015 and the appeal was admittedly filed on 01-09-2015 and the same ought to have been entertained on merits without adopting hyper technical pedantic approach of dismissing it on the ground of limitation.

12. Per contra, learned counsel for the EPF, Mr. Das, as well for the beneficiary employees, Mr. Barik, who were allowed to intervene, submit that there is no infirmity in the impugned order at Annexure-1 passed by the Appellate Tribunal. Hence, the writ petition does not merit consideration. And, it is their further submission that taking into account the beneficial nature of the legislation, the limitation has to be applied strictly and the same cannot be extended in any way.

13. To fortify their submission that this Court has no power to condone the delay, the pari meteria provisions of the Central Excise Act were relied upon referring to the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of M/s Singh Enterprises v. Commissioner of Central Excise, Jamshedpur and others , (2008) 3 SCC 70 and to buttress their argument that the delay cannot be condoned by invoking provisions of Limitation Act reliance has been placed on the following precedents of the Delhi High Court;

i. Assistant Regional Provident Fund Commissioner v. Employees Provident Fund Appellate Tribunal and others , (2006) 2 LLJ 388.

ii. Prudential Spinners Ltd . v. The Employees P.F. Appellate Tribunal , (2007) 142 DLT 361.

14. There cannot be two opinions that the Act 1952 is a beneficial legislation and the same has been succinctly stated in the “statement of object” of the said Act. Reference can also be gainfully made to the dictum of the Apex Court in the case of Regional Provident Fund Commissioner (II) West Bengal v. Vivekananda Vidyamandir and others, (2020) 17 SCC 643.

15. So far as condonation of delay is concerned, this Court respectfully refers to the recent dictum of the Apex Court in the case of Shivamma v. Karnataka Housing Board, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1969 and contentions as raised have to be examined in the context of the judgment of the Apex Court also in the case of Commissioner of Sales Tax, U.P., Lucknow v. M/s. Parson Tools and Plants, Kanpur, AIR 1975 SC 1039, laying down that where power of condoning delay is specified under any special statute, the general provisions of section 5 and 14 of the Limitation Act would have no application in cases where appellate and revisional authority is not a Court.

16. Admittedly, in the case at hand even excluding the period of pendency before this Court as per section 14 of the Limitation Act, the period of delay comes to 289 days. Undisputedly, the appeal was not filed within the time line “15 days” fixed by this Court.

17. Be that as it may, the another distinguishing feature which is of seminal importance and cannot be lost sight of is that, it can be reasonably concluded that this Court being conscious of the limitation prescribed notwithstanding the schematic arrangement of effective statutory remedy having been bypassed in preferring writ petition under
Article 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India and there being no exceptional cause to entertain the same in exercise of its plenary jurisdiction still, taking a liberal view granted 15 days time to the Petitioner-State establishment to prefer the statutory appeal. But admittedly, the same was not filed within the time as stipulated, as noted by the impugned order 17-09-2015 and quoted hereunder for convenience of reference;

“xxx xxx xxx

Appeal actually filed on behalf of appellant on 01-09-2015. It becomes clear that appellant not adhered order dated 10-07-2015 passed by Hon'ble High Court, so again and again, appellant can not be allowed to take benefits of its own wrong/fault, so accordingly present appeal is hereby dismissed being time-barred.

xxx xxx xxx”

18. There being no prayer for extension of time stipulated by this Court, the Tribunal could not have entertained such appeal. And, considering the matter on merits in the factual matrix of the case at hand would have been contumacious.

As such, this Court does not find any infirmity in the order passed by the tribunal warranting interference by this Court.

The Writ Petition is accordingly dismissed. Costs made easy.

The order of 17-09-2015 passed in section 7A proceeding along with interest component in terms of the provisions of 7Q of the Act, 1952 shall be complied by the Petitioner within four months from the date of receipt/production of copy of this judgment.

19. Before parting, this Court is constrained to observe that the case at hand stands as a testimony of bureaucratic inertia to the orders passed by this Court in not taking steps within the time stipulated nor making any motion to get the time extended. Unless a mechanism is put in place at each level fixing accountability to ensure due compliance of orders passed by the Courts, the cause of the State is bound to suffer because of administrative malaise and institutional apathy.

20. In view of the disposal of the Writ Petition, all the pending I.As. stand disposed of.

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