Institutions under the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission will continue to remain outside the purview of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) even as the Central government took a decision two years back to extend social security benefits to workers in all such charitable and religious trusts.
The EPFO took a decision in May this year allowing institutions run by two trusts — Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission — to remain outside its purview, documents reviewed by The Hindu show.
The education institutions and hospitals run under Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission have been exempted from the EPFO’s coverage since 1982.
2015 amendment
However, the trusts started receiving notices for provident fund coverage of its workers from the EPFO’s regional offices after the Central government, in September 2015, decided to bring workers in all charitable and religious trusts, employing more than 20 workers, under the social security fold with effect from April 2015. So, all religious trusts and places — maths , temples, gurudwara, and churches — employing at least 20 workers were required to extend provident fund benefits to their staff.
The Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission wrote a letter to Labour and Employment Minister Bandaru Dattatreya in January this year pleading that the trust’s activities were spiritual, “namely service of God in man” and compliance notices from the EPFO for coverage of its workers were a hindrance to its “charitable activities.”
“These two institutions have been rendering yeoman service to the poor and the needy through their hospitals, educational institutions, rural and tribal development work, relief and rehabilitation programmes, etc. The basis of all these activities is spirituality, namely service of God in man,” Swami Suhitananda, General Secretary of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission said in the letter dated January 28.
“Such notices and the subsequent developments greatly disturb and hinder our charitable and philanthropic activities,” he said.
The trusts based its argument on a Central government order issued over three decades back in 1982 which exempted them from the EPFO’s coverage under Section 19(A) of the Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952. The section of the law has, however, now been repealed. The Central government back then had exempted the trusts from extending providend fund benefits under the government’s law “as their dominant objective is spirituality.”
The EPFO sought a legal opinion to know whether or not orders passed by the Central government under the repealed section of the law would remain in force till date and if it supersedes the September 2015 circular which brought all the trusts and religious places under its fold. The EPFO’s legal adviser opined that all orders under the repealed section of the law would continue to remain in force and forwarded it to the Labour Ministry “for concurrence.”
“Legal advisor (Labour and Employment) has opined that the legal opinion of EPFO that the order made by Central government under Section 19A continues to be in force appears to be sustainable. Accordingly, the above establishments shall remain outside the purview of the (EPF and MP) Act (sic),” the EPFO said in a circular dated May 18 this year.
The Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission have 132 centres in India and run several schools, colleges, clinics, dispensaries, etc across the country.
