MRS. NEENA SANDHU, MEMBER

1.       This is an appeal filed by OPs No.4 and 5 against order dated 10.8.2010 passed by District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum-I, UT, Chandigarh (for short hereinafter to be referred as District Forum) passed in complaint case No. 172 of 2010.

2.       Briefly stated the facts of the case are that the complainant was working as Manager (General) with Food Corporation of India and was posted in the office of OP No.3. The complainant retired from the service on 31.8.2009. While in service, the complainant was a member of the Employees Pension Scheme-1995 having CPF No.10608 & F.P.S. A/c No.10658 and entitled for the pension under EPS 1995 from 1.9.2007 on attaining the age of 58 years. It was submitted by the complainant that prior to his retirement, the complainant submitted all the requisite paper for the grant of pension under the EPS 1995, which was forwarded by the OP No.3 to OP No.1, who forwarded the same to OP No.4 vide their letter dated 5.3.2009 but despite lapse of one year and three months, no response to release the family pension was received nor any back reference was received from the competent authority. It was submitted that despite timely submission of the required papers with the authorities, neither the pension was released nor any reasons explained for withholding the same and accordingly the pension of the complainant was illegally withheld by the concerned authority. Non payment of pension to the complainant for a long time has caused a great financial as well as irreparable loss to the complainant as well as to the entire family, in addition to it, complainant was put to mental agony/distress on account of undue delay in releasing the pension to the complainant. The above said act of Ops amounts to deficiency in service and unfair trade practice. Hence, the complaint was filed.

3.       Reply was filed by OPs No.1 to 3 and admitted that OP No.1 forwarded the family pension case to Provident Fund Commissioner on 5.3.2009 but the Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner refused to accept the family pension paper of the complainant as per remarks given in peon book of FCI on 23.4.2009. It was further pleaded that earlier also, Provident Fund Commission refused to accept the number of pension cases and the OP No.1 wrote a letter to RPFC on 1.4.2010 requesting the RPFC to accept the family pension cases of FCI employees, otherwise RPFC may be liable for interest. The FCI issued a number of letters in this regard. It was further submitted that the delay was caused due to the act and conduct of RPFC, Noida, OP No.4 who earlier refused to accept the family pension cases. All the material allegations leveled by the complainant in the complaint were denied and pleaded that there was no deficiency in service or unfair trade practice on their part and prayed for dismissal of the complaint.

4.       Reply was filed by the OPs No.4 and 5 (Provident Fund) and submitted that after the receipt of pension papers of the complainant by OP No.4 on 22.1.2010 from OP No.1, the same were processed in accordance with the provisions of EPF Scheme. The same were sent along with pension input data sheet to OP No.5 for issuing the pension payment order in favour of the complainant.  It was further pleaded that pension input data sheet was received by OP No.5 on 21.5.2010 who immediately issued the PPO (Pension Payment Order) in his favour on 25.5.2010 for disbursement of the monthly pension to the complainant. It was submitted that there was no fault on their part and prayed for dismissal of the complaint. 

5.       The parties led their evidence in support of their contentions.

6.       The learned District Forum allowed the complaint and directed the OPs  No.4 and 5 to pay Rs.50,000/- as compensation to the complainant along with litigation costs of Rs.5,500/-. The OPs No.4 and 5 were directed to comply with the order within 30 days from the date of receipt of copy of the order failing which they would be liable to pay the entire amount along with penal interest @ 12% p.a. from the date of filing of the complaint i.e. 15.3.2010 till the amount is actually paid to the complainant. The complaint against OPs No. 1 to 3 is dismissed with no order as to costs. It was further directed that the above said amount along with interest and costs, if any, may be recovered from the salary of the officer(s)/official(s) due to whose inaction the matter was delayed, of course after giving notice to the concerned employee(s) as required under the relevant service rules.

7.          Aggrieved by the order passed by the learned District Forum, the present appeal has been filed by the OPs No.4 and 5.  Ms.Geeta Sharma, Advocate has appeared on behalf of appellants, Sh.Vinod Kumar, Advocate has appeared on behalf of respondent No.1 (complainant) and Sh.Santokh Singh, Advocate has appeared on behalf of respondents No.2 to 4 (FCI).

8.       In appeal, it is contended by the appellants (Provident Fund) that they issued EPF Code No.UP/36784 to the respondents No.2 and 3  in April, 2006 as the appellants have employees record of respondents No.2 and 3 only from April, 2006 onwards. It is submitted by the appellants that before April, 2006 details of employees EPF contributions should be provided by respondents No.2 and 3. Since the new code has been allotted to them due to the decentralization of the FCI but FCI has failed to update the accounts of employees as per the requirement after the decentralization.   The FCI failed to submit the Form 13-A along with Form 10-D of the R-1 and according to the EPF Act, without Form 13-A the appellants could not settle the case of respondent No.1 as the complete details were not sent to the appellants for the disbursement of the pension. The case was received with the appellants initially on 22.1.2010 but the case was not complete. The appellants issued several reminders to the FCI in this regard (Annexures A-1 to A-5). The appellants received the Form 10-D of the respondent No.1 along with the complete details of his EPF and pension contribution details, in the month of January, 2010. The appellants settled the claim and issued the PPO on 25.5.2010 for disbursement of monthly pension. Therefore, there is no deficiency in service and unfair trade practice on the part of appellants, rather the delay and deficiency is on the part of FCI, who has taken such a long period in submitting the duly completed claim form 10-D, as per the requirement of the disburseent of the pension within the stipulated period. It is submitted that appellants did regular correspondence and communication with FCI to provide the complete details but FCI failed to reply the same promptly. It is further submitted that FCI is also a defaulter of Provident Fund dues of Rs.63,17,69,582/- as per the assessment order of Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Delhi (North). The learned District Forum has relied upon the averments of FCI without any substantial proof and FCI had argued that appellants have refused to accept the claim papers of respondent No.1 on 53.2009 on the ground of alleged remarks in the peon book of FCI on 23.4.2009. The stand taken by the FCI is false because during the period, the appellants have received and settled number of claims. It is submitted that there was no question of non acceptance of the pension papers by the appellants as during 2009-2010 this office has accepted total 139595 number of claims, out of which 136429 numbers of claims were disposed which include 1281 number of 10-D pension claims. The appellant has written letters dated 6.9.2010 and 17.4.2009 to the FCI but FCI has failed to follow the guidelines regarding the submission of claim forms of their employees in order to expedite the procedure. It is submitted that the alleged remarks given in the peon book of the FCI on 23.4.2009, the intervening period between 5.3.2009 and 23.4.2009 was not explained by the FCI which clearly creates doubts on the conduct of FCI. The learned District Forum failed to take note of the negligent and malafide conduct of FCI and ignored the vital issues :-

i)        Why FCI kept on waiting for a long stretch of 9 months to submit the form after the alleged letter dated 5.3.2009.

ii)       What action in the shape of any correspondence by registered post or speed post was taken by the FCI to provide their bona fide in the present case especially when the appellant as mentioned above was accepting and settling the claims of the employees.

          It is submitted that no Government Office can refuse to accept the papers as alleged in the present case. No justifiable reason was given by respondents No. 2 to 4 to prove their alleged stand that why the papers were finally sent on 22.1.2010 i.e. after gap of 9 months and the learned District Forum has failed to look into the negligent and malafide conduct of the FCI while passing the impugned order and dismissing the complaint against respondents No. 2 to 4. The learned District Forum has erred in allowing the complaint by awarding Rs.50,000/- as compensation along with Rs.5,500/- as litigation costs while both could not granted in any circumstances and the entire findings recorded by the learned District Forum in the impugned order are baseless. The complainant has not placed on record any document proving the averments and allegations of deficiency in service as well as unfair trade practice on the part of appellants to delay the settlement of pension claim of respondent No.1 and as such the learned District Forum without any material on record on the part of complainant, relied upon the version of the respondents No. 2 to 4. Hence, it is prayed that appeal may kindly be allowed and the impugned order passed by the learned District Forum may kindly be set aside.

9.       The learned counsel for the respondent No.1 (complainant) argued that the complainant was working as Manager (General) with Food Corporation of India and retired from the service on 31.8.2009. He was a member of the Employees Pension Scheme-1995 and was entitled for the pension under EPS 1995 from 1.9.2007 on attaining the age of 58 years. It was argued that prior to his retirement, the respondent No.1/complainant submitted all the requisite paper for the grant of pension, which was forwarded by the respondent No.4/OP No.3 to respondent No.2/OP No.1, who forwarded the same to appellant No.2/OP No.4 vide their letter dated 5.3.2009 but even after one year and three months, family pension was not released to him which caused him a lot of mental agony and distress. Due to non payment of pension to the respondent No.1/complainant for a long time has caused great financial as well as irreparable loss to the respondent No.1/complainant as well as to the entire family. Hence, it is prayed that the appeal may kindly be dismissed.

10.     The learned counsel for respondents No. 2 to 4 argued that respondent No.2/OP No.1 forwarded the family pension case to Provident Fund Commissioner on 5.3.2009 but the Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner refused to accept the family pension paper of the complainant as per remarks given in peon book of FCI on 23.4.2009 for which they wrote letter to them on 1.4.2010. It was further argued that the delay was caused due to the act and conduct of appellant No.1/OP No.4 who earlier refused to accept the family pension cases. Hence, there was no deficiency in service or unfair trade practice on their part and prayed for dismissal of the appeal.

11.     We have gone through the file and heard the learned counsel for the parties. A perusal of the file shows that the OPs No. 1 to 3 have forwarded the pension case of the complainant to the Provident Fund Commissioner on 5.3.2009 but the OPs No. 4 and 5 refused to accept the same. Regarding this, the OPs No. 1 to 3 have produced the photocopy of the peon book dated 23.4.2009 which clearly shows that vide which pension cases, including that of the complainant, were sent to the office of OPs No. 4 and 5 but they refused to accept the pension papers sent to them on the ground that there was rush of work with them and they were unable to deal with the cases. The photocopy of the other correspondence between the FCI and RPFC placed on file also proves that this delay is due to the fault of RPFC and not FCI. Due to the reasons above mentioned, the OP No.3 again submitted the pension papers to OPs No. 4 and 5 on 21/22.1.2010 i.e. after a delay of around 9 months, it is apparent that when the OPs No. 4 and 5 accepted the papers from OP No. 3 even then they took 4 months to dispose of the case of the complainant. Therefore, with this observation, we are of the opinion that certainly the OPs No. 4 and 5 are liable for the delay in disposing of the pension case of the complainant and the learned District Forum has rightly allowed the complaint against OPs No. 4 and 5 and dismissed the complaint against OPs No. 1 to 3. The learned District Forum has rightly directed the OPs No.4 and 5 (RPFC, Noida and Regional Provident Commissioner, Punjab) to pay compensation of Rs.50,000/- along with litigation costs of Rs.5,500/-. The impugned order passed by the learned District Forum is just, fair and proper. No interference is called for. Hence, the appeal filed by the appellants is hereby dismissed and the order passed by the learned District Forum is upheld. The parties are left to bear their own costs.

12.            Copies of this order be sent to the parties, free of charge.