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| Make arrangements to transfer Rs 25 crores to JAKFED: HC to Finance Department | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, May 3: High Court has come to rescue of retired employees of JAKFED and has directed Finance department to immediately make arrangement to transfer Rs 25 crores to the JAKFED to enable it to discharge the liability of the dues and salaries of its retired employees.
The High Court said the needful shall be done within a period of three month from the date of receipt of copy of this order. "It shall be the duty of the departments concerned to pay to the JAKFED the amount due from them, which is stated to be about Rs 19 crore or action be taken for recovery of dues as suggested in the minutes of meeting. The balance amount of Rs 6 crores can be reimbursed to the Finance Department on sale of the assets of the Federation or as decided by the Chief Secretary as the employees/retirees cannot be made to wait for years together only because of mismanagement of the Federation by the Officers/Officials concerned at the relevant time. Steps should be also taken to clear dues of Employees Provident Fund Organization," the order said.
This significant judgment was passed by Justice Rajesh Bindal in a contempt petition filed by Sudershan Kumar and others.
Justice Rajesh Bindal after hearing advocate Ajay Sharma for the petitioners whereas advocate Adarsh Sharma for JAKFED observed that petitioners had approached this court with a grievance that having retired from service of JAKFED in the years 2011 and 2013, they had not been paid their dues on retirement. The writ petition was disposed of with a direction to the official respondents therein to calculate and pay the outstanding dues to the petitioners within a period of six months from the date of receipt of copy of the order.
High Court further observed that as the order was not complied with, present contempt petition was filed. The same is pending ever since notice was issued on 04.07.2016.
The stand of the respondent is that the Federation is in financial crunch. There is no liquid cash available for payment of the retiral dues and salaries of the employees. In the statement of facts filed by the then Managing Director of the JAKFED dated 25.05.2017.
The details mentioned therein are astonishing. There are retirees from the year 2000 onwards who have not been paid there dues. Some of them had even expired waiting for payment of their dues. The total amount of liability, as mentioned in Annexure is stated to be around RS 4 crores.
Other documents attached with the statement of facts further show that JAKFED had been defaulter in payment of Provident Fund dues of the employees. There are number of notices issued by the Additional Provident Fund Commissioner, asking the Federation to deposit the contribution, administrative charges, interest and damages. That amount also runs into crores of rupees. Meaning thereby the Federation had deducted the Provident Fund from the salaries of the employees and misappropriated the same for its one use instead of depositing it with the Provident Fund Organization.
Justice Rajesh Bindal further observed that counsel for the respondents submitted that a decision has been taken to windup the JAKFED.
The minutes of the meeting recorded on 15.01.2019 show that the statutory liability/retiral benefits of the employees run into about RS 25 crores whereas the amount to be recovered by the JAKFED from different departments is about RS 19 crore. It has further been noted in the minutes that approximate value of the assets of the JAKFED is more than Rs 200 crores. A decision was also taken to frame VRS for employees. |
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