Legal Reference Library

Central Information Commission Kalyan Kumar Ganguly v. PIO, ESIC, Kolkata MANU/CI/0314/2017 11.05.2017 Right to Information Information relating to wages of employees has to be voluntarily disclosed by public authority Appellant sought information regarding M/s. Laxmi Distribution. Specifically, he sought relationship between one Mr. H.B. Singhvi and M/s. Laxmi Distribution; return of contribution filed for relevant period and whether it was certified by chartered accountants or not; total number of employees working in said establishment etc. through eight points. CPIO denied on grounds that, information sought was relating to third party. Being dissatisfied by Order given by FAA who upheld decision of CPIO, Appellant approached this Commission. Appellant submitted that, PF amount was deducted for period 1986 to 1988 but it was not deposited, and no benefits were given from 1986 to 2016. PF account is not like any other individual private bank account where all his perso...

The Madras High Court has held that a widow is equally entitled, even after remarrying, to receive the Provident Fund amount from her late husband’s account. The court reiterated the fact that the bar under Section 24 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, was deleted in September 2005, upholding her right to claim herself as a legal representative of her deceased husband. The petitioner had remarried following her husband’s death in 2001. In 2004, on an appeal by the mother of the deceased, the Principal Subordinate Judge had given her the sole right to obtain the amount lying in her son’s Provident Fund account. The widow had preferred an appeal against the said order. Justice N Kirubakaran reiterated the provisions of the Succession Act, 1956, and the Hindu Widow Re-marriage Act, 1856, and held that, ‘the right of the widow not only to remarry, but also to inherit the property of the late husband has been declared and the women, including widows, are treated as co-parcener on par with t...

The nettlesome problem of provident fund for casual construction workers returned to the Delhi High Court with the Builders Association of India and several construction firms alleging that they should not be compelled to pay their contribution because the workers change places and could not be traced. The court had in the past asked the government to put in place a workable scheme to benefit the labourers who change employers and work place very often. Since this has not been done satisfactorily, the employers should not be compelled to contribute to the fund, they argued. The high court dismissed their petitions stating that the problem of logistics in finding the workers and paying them is different from the liability of the employers. The argument that unless the provident fund authorities and the government could show that they had a "mechanism as per which the workmen whose job was portable could avail the benefit of the money lying to their credit all over India, no liabili...