- (1.) CHALLENGE in this writ application is to the order dated September 7, 2007 passed in ESI case No. 3/2008 by the Presiding Officer, labour Court-cum-Authority under Employees state Insurance Act, Dhanbad, whereby the petitioner's prayer for waiver of pre-requisite deposit of 50% of the disputed amount, have been rejected. Similar challenge has also been made against the order dated February 1,2008 passed in the aforesaid case by the learned court below, whereby the main application filed by the petitioner in respect of the maintainability of the proceeding itself, was dismissed. A further prayer has been made for quashing the provisional registration certificate issued by the respondent which, according to the petitioner, was issued under misconception and with ulterior motive, though according to the petitioner, it is not liable for registration or for coverage of any amount under the provisions of the Employees' State Insurance act.
(2.) THE petitioner's case in brief is that it is engaged in the business of storage of food articles. In course of its business, the petitioner had never appointed more than nine employees in its Establishment at any point of time. Such fact has been acknowledged and accepted by the Labour Department which had issued the registration to the petitioner's Establishment under the Bihar Shops and Establishments Act and had renewed it from time to time declaring in all such renewals that the number of employees in the petitioner's Establishment does not exceed nine. It is stated that on a regular inspection, the inspector of the ESI Corporation made a casual visit to the petitioner's Establishment. Even though, he had personally observed that the total number of employees working in the petitioner's Establishment was only nine, the inspector had wrongly and maliciously recorded that there were eleven employees working in the Unit. On the basis of the report of the Inspector, and on the claim that the petitioner has been engaging eleven workers in its Unit, the respondents allotted provisional registration to the petitioner under the ESI Act with further direction to produce its cash memo, vouchers and other documents for verification to the insurance Inspector. The petitioner objected to the directive issued by the respondents on the ground that its Unit does not come within the purview of the ESI Act. In spite of such objection, the respondent authorities recorded an ex-parte order and raised a demand of Rs. 75,344/- as being the amount of contribution payable by the petitioner from February 20, 2003 to May 31,2005. The petitioner being aggrieved by the action of the respondent authorities, moved before the Labour Court-cum-Authority under the Employees' State Insurance Act by filing an application challenging the provisional registration allotted and also prayed for waiver of pre-requisite deposit of 50% of the disputed amount and also for staying the operation of the impugned demand. The learned Court below by its impugned order dated September 7, 2007 (Annexure-10), rejected the petitioner's prayer for waiver of the prerequisite deposit of 50% of the disputed amount and directed the petitioner to make the 50% deposit and by subsequent order dated February 1,2008 (Annexure-13)the learned Court below dismissed the main application of the petitioner on the ground of non-deposit of 50% of the disputed amount.
(3.) THE petitioner has challenged the impugned orders on the ground that prerequisite deposit of 50% of the disputed amount, cannot be made a Rule when legality, validity and genuineness of the registration under the ESI Act is under challenge. Shri Indrajit Sinha, learned counsel for the petitioner, would argue that the learned Court below without considering the grounds raised by the petitioner challenging the registration itself, has rejected the petitioner's original application itself on technical grounds, but not on merits. Learned counsel submits further that the demand of the amount, as raised by the respondents, is in itself bad in law and violative of the principles of natural justice as because, the petitioner was not given any opportunity of being heard against the proposed demand.;