HCL, Rupnarayanpur Former Employees Hopeful for Pending PF Dues

ASANSOL. 1,750 former employees and officers of Hindustan Cables Rupnarayanpur are hopeful that they will soon receive their pending provident fund (PF) dues. This hope has been sparked following a recent important verdict by the Calcutta High Court. A petition in this regard was filed by High Court lawyer Harishankar Chattopadhyay. Hearing the case, the High Court ruled that the pending amount should be paid within the next two months. On October 17, 2011, a portion of the employees' PF was directly deposited with the PF authorities in Durgapur. Prior to that, this money was with the company's Board of Trustees. When the factory shut down permanently in 2017, former employees and officers demanded their pending dues, but received no response. Factory employee Dilip Chowdhury along with 172 other workers had filed a writ petition in the Calcutta High Court demanding the return of the pending amount. However, accepting the arguments of the PF authorities, the court had initially dismissed the petition, arguing that if all the money goes into the government's Consolidated Fund, it is impossible to make separate payments to any employee. Lawyer Harishankar Chattopadhyay, associated with the factory, gathered specific information about the deposited funds and filed a new case in the High Court against the Durgapur PF Commissioner under the Right to Information Act. The judge ordered the payment of the money within two months. Harishankar Chattopadhyay has sent a letter to the Durgapur Provident Commissioner in this regard.