Delhi High Court orders immediate release of ‘Provident Fund’ of defunct paper mill employees

April 24: In what seems to be a great respite for the two defunct paper mills of Assam, the Delhi High Court has paved the way for release of provident fund dues of the employees. The Delhi High Court on 24 April passed the order that will bring joy to the hearts of more than 1200 workers of the Hindustan Paper Corporation Limited, which operates two Mills in Assam, at Nagaon and Panchgram whose wages were not paid for 4 years, ever since the mills closed down.

The High Court Bench of Justice Najmi Waziri directed the Liquidator of HPCL and the EPF Organisation to disburse 20% of the Provident Fund amount to the workers within one week, amounting to a total of Rs. 42 crores. The High Court further directed the Liquidator and the EPFO to disburse the remaining PF amount of over Rs. 160 crores at the earliest. The petition filed by the Cachar Paper Project Workers Union was filed through Advocate Siddharth Seem and was argued by Senior Advocate Mr. Colin Gonsalves. In January earlier this year the Delhi High Court had passed another order in the same matter protecting the workers from eviction from their quarters.

HPCL, wholly owned by the Government of India, went into liquidation in 2018, and the workers have not been paid their wages, PF and other statutory dues for 39 months, since January 2017. Due to the dire financial constraints faced by the workers, over 60 workers have died during this period, and three have even committee suicide. The total dues owed to the 1200 workers is over Rs. 600 crores, and while the Parliament allocated Rs. 90 crore in July 2018 for disbursement of salaries to the workers, the same has not been done till date. The Delhi High Court directed the counsel appearing for Union of India to respond to this issue on the next date of hearing on 21 May, 2020.

Expressing his views, President of the Cachar Paper Project Workers Union, Manobendra Chakroborty said, “The workers are dying regularly under starvation & non-availability of treatment  due to non-payment of salaries and statutory dues since the last 39 months. While the Central Government’s attitude has been neglectful and hostile, Hon’ble Delhi  High Court has come to the rescue of dying workers. We believe justice will be done and workers will get their entire legitimate dues. We feel proud to express our gratitude to Learned Senior Advocate Mr. Colin Gonsalves & Siddharth Seem for their tireless efforts to bring the case for hearing during this lockdown period under urgent circumstances. We are waiting for the order copy for our next course of action.”