(Uday Umesh Lalit and Indu Malhotra, JJ.)
Pawan Hans Ltd. ____________________________________ Petitioner;
v.
Aviation Karmachari Sanghatana and Others _________ Respondent(s).
Petition for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No. 381/2019, decided on October 24, 2019
The Order of the court was delivered by
Order
1. Heard Ms. Pinky Anand, learned ASG in support of the petition, Mr. P.S. Narasimha, learned Senior Advocate for the respondent – Aviation Karmachari Sanghatana, and, Mr. Siddharth, learned Advocate for Respondent No. 3 – Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Employees Provident Fund Organisation.
2. Hearing concluded.
3. The parties are liberty to file their written submissions within two weeks from today.
4. One of the issues which came up during the course of hearing was as under:—
Provident Fund is normally managed on actuarial basis; the contributions received from employer and the employee are invested and the income by way of interest forms the substantial fund through which any pay-out is made. For all these years the Fund in question was subsisting on contributions made by the other employees and, if at this stage, the benefit in terms of the judgment of the High Court is extended with retrospective effect, it may create imbalance. Those who had never contributed at any stage would now be members of the fund. The fund never had any advantage of their contributions and yet the fund would be required to bear the burden in case any pay-out is to be made. Even if concerned employees are directed to make good contributions with respect to previous years with equivalent matching contribution from the employer, the fund would still be deprived of the interest income for past several years in respect of such contributions.
5. In order to have clear perspective in the matter and to see if there could be any solution to the problem as posed above, we call upon the petitioner to depute a person who is well versed in the matter and who has been managing the Provident Fund Scheme of Pawan Hans Limited to have a dialogue with the respondent No. 3 before 15.11.2019 (a representative of the respondent(s) is also at liberty to remain present during such discussion) so that a workable solution could then be presented by such person and the representative of respondent No. 3 before us on the next occasion.
6. List the matter on 29.11.2019 at 10.30 a.m.
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