Retirement benefits namely Provident fund, Gratuity, pension amount cannot be attached - whether they are payable to the employee or to his legal representatives

Citation

CDJ 2003 MHC 1676

(2004)1 MLJ 43, 

 Sathiyabama and others vs. M.Palanisamy and others, 

 Provident fund, Gratuity, pension amount cannot be attached 

Head Note

Code of Civil Procedure - Section 60 (g) - Attachment - whether the amount due as provident fund, leave salary, gratuity etc., to the deceased employee can be attached in the hands of the employer pending the suit for recovery of money filed against the legal representatives of such employee for amounts borrowed by him? - Held - Whether the employee has retired, or has become insolvent or has died the character of these amounts do not change so long as they are in the hands of the employer. The immunity from attachment is complete. The object of the provisions are to see that the employee gets these amounts after his retirement or his heirs get them after the employee's 'death' since the scheme is a beneficial one, the authority viz.: the employer is a trustee for those sums and is bound to object to the attachment. The second respondent has rightly maintained its stand against the attachment. There can be no legal justification for classifying or describing such deposits or amounts differently after the employee's death or retirement, so long as they are with the employees, there is protection from attachments. Provident Fund amounts, pension and other compulsory deposit retain their character until they reach the hands of the employee, any other view cannot be taken considering the conditions in which such exemption provisions operate and the class of persons they were intended to benefit. In one of the decisions, even the pay order had been made out but it had not left the hands of the employer, the plea of the person seeking attachment on the ground that, really nothing further was required, was in vain. It still had not reached the employee and as the learned Judge picturesquely put it, "A miss is as good as a mile."

Para 9

Comparative Citations:
2004 (2) CTC 129, 2004 (1) MLJ 43, 2004 (1) LW 125