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Judgment
I. Mahanty, J.—All the above three writ applications have been taken together as they involve common question of law and since the Petitioners'' firms have been clubbed together by the E.P.F. authorities in passing the impugned order u/s 7A of the Employees'' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (for short, "the Act").
In all the three writ applications, the Petitioners seek to challenge the order passed by the E.P.F. authorities u/s 7A of the Act of vide Annexure-5.
The essential claim of the Petitioner is based on facts. The question that has been raised is whether the Petitioners'' firms have been correctly determined to be covered under the operation of the Act or not.
In this respect, in the counter affidavit filed by the Opp. Parties, various facts have been stated in order to justify their action of clubbing together the employees of two firms on the basis of the report of the squads and document submitted with it. The 7A authority found that there are many ingredients available on the basis of which all the three firms can be clubbed for the purpose of extending the P.F. benefits of the employees of these firms and have ordered accordingly passing a detailed reasoned speaking order on 31.10.2000, which is impugned herein. It is further stated that the Petitioner has commenced depositing provident funds dues from November 2000 onwards.
Learned Counsel for the Provident Funds authorities, submitted that the writ applications are not maintainable on account of the fact that a statutory remedy by way of filing an appeal before the E.P.F. Appellate Tribunal u/s 7A of the Act is available to the Petitioners.
In consideration of the above submission of the Learned Counsel for the E.P.F. authorities, I am also of the view that since an alternative statutory remedy is available to the Petitioner by filing an appeal before the E.P.F. Appellate Tribunal, the present writ applications are not maintainable.
However, in order to afford an opportunity to the Petitioners to seek statutory remedy u/s 7-1 of the Act if the Petitioners file an appeal(s) u/s 7-1 of the Act along with a petition for condonation of delay within a period of eight weeks from today, the Appellate authority shall consider the same leniently and pass orders condoning the delay and take up the matter for consideration on merits.
With the aforesaid observation, the writ applications stand disposed of.