Alok Sharma, J. - (1.) This petition has been filed with the prayer that the Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner, Employees Provident Fund Organization be directed to appoint any other officer except respondent No. 3 - Mr. Ashish Kumar to continue the pending enquiry under Sec. 7 -A of the provisions of Employees Provident Funds Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 against the petitioner company. The other prayer is that action be taken against respondent No. 3 for his alleged bias against the petitioner company and an enquiry be initiated against him for the purpose.
(2.) The facts of the case are that an enquiry was initiated against the petitioner company under Sec. 7 -A of the Act of 1952 in August, 2011 and was since then being conducted by the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner (RPFC), Kota. The respondent No. 3 was transferred to the said post in the year 2012. The enquiry appears to have gone ahead since its commencement without much controversy till about July, 2015. The case now set up by the petitioner is that the respondent No. 3 Ashish Kumar, the RPFC, Kota is biased against the petitioner company. Circumstances for alleging bias are that on three dates fixed for the enquiry i.e. 14.7.2015, 23.7.2015 and 30.7.2015, the summons/notices for presence on the said dates were dispatched to the petitioner company on the date of hearing in the enquiry or even thereafter. It has also been submitted that on the petitioner company applying for copies of the order -sheets of the enquiry, vide letter dated 2.9.2015, the respondent No. 3 dismissed the application on the specious ground that till the enquiry under Sec. 7 -A of the Act of 1952 was pending, no part of record could be made available. It has also been submitted that objections of the petitioner company with regard to enquiry under Sec. 7 -A of the aforesaid Act being misplaced and the matter being more appropriately governed by para 26 -B of the Employees Provident Fund Scheme has also gone a begging. In the circumstances, it has been alleged that respondent No. 3 is biased against the petitioner company and the enquiry under Sec. 7 -A of the Act of 1952 be transferred to any other officer of equal rank.
(3.) On the matter coming up, this Court required a copy of petition served on Mr. R.B. Mathur, Standing counsel for Regional Provident Fund Department. No reply has been filed but Mr. Mathur, at the very outset, submitted that the three incidents referred to by the petitioner, when notices were issued on the date or subsequent to the date on which proceedings in enquiry under Sec. 7 -A of the Act of 1952 were taken, were an outcome of an apparent mistake in the office of the Provident Fund Commissioner at the instance of the dispatch clerk not even remotely attributable to alleged bias or mala fides of respondent No. 3.;