Mohan M. Shantanagoudar JUDGMENT
Mohan M. Shantanagoudar, J.
1. The judgment dated 28.02.2007 passed in Insurance Appeal No. 2 of 2004 by the High Court of Kerala at Ernakulam is called in question in this appeal. By the impugned judgment, the High Court allowed the appeal filed by the Respondent herein and set aside the order dated 13.10.2003 passed by the ESI Court, Idukki, Kerala.
2. Brief facts leading to this appeal are as follows:
The Respondent is an establishment covered by the provisions of Employees State Insurance Act, 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the 'ESI Act'). It is a private limited company engaged in the business of printing and publishing of a daily Malayalam newspaper called "Mangalam"; the Respondent has more than 250 employees including working and non-working journalists. In order to have a uniform formula regarding the wages payable to the employees of newspaper companies like the Respondent, the Central Government appointed Wage Boards from time to time to study and submit reports from time to time. Earlier, the Wage Board headed by Justice Bachawat, known as 'Bachawat Wage Board' was constituted and the Board submitted its recommendations. Thereafter, the Government of India appointed a new Wage Board, headed by Justice Manisana which was called as 'Manisana Wage Board'. As per the recommendations of 'Manisana Wage Board', the Government of India issued a notification dated 24.09.1996 fixing interim rates of wages in respect of working journalists, non-working journalists and newspaper agency employees at the rate of twenty per cent of the basic wages and an additional amount of Rs. 100/- per month, with effect from 20.04.1996. As per the said notification, the Respondent started paying interim relief to its employees, and paid such interim relief from 01.04.1996 to 31.03.2000. However, the Respondent did not pay the statutory contribution under the ESI Act for the period during which it paid interim wages to its employees. The ESI contribution due on interim wages paid by the Respondent from 01.04.1996 to 31.03.2000 worked out to Rs. 2,53,272/- (however, as per demand notice dated 02.11.2000, the figure is Rs. 2,58,061.50).
Subsequently, another office memorandum was issued by the Government of India, Department of Public Enterprises, Ministry of Industry, providing for the grant of interim relief to the employees of Central Public Sector Enterprises (PSES). The said office memorandum was subject to the following conditions:
a) These instructions are applicable to the employees of Central PSES following IDA pattern.
b) The amount paid as interim relief would be fully adjusted and .... in the final pay revision package.
c) xxx xxx xxx
d) xxx xxx xxx
e) xxx xxx xxx
f) xxx xxx xxx
g) The amount of interim relief will be....viz. it will neither be termed as 'pay' nor 'allowances' nor 'wages'. Accordingly, this amount would not count for any service benefit i.e. computation of house rent allowance, compensatory allowance, overtime allowance, cash compensation, encashment of leave, pay fixation, pension or gratuity etc.
The afore-mentioned office memorandum dated 19.08.1998 of the Ministry of Industry had nothing to do with the ........