Judgment :- The writ petitioner is a trade union of the employees working in the second respondent Management. When the said Institution is sought to be covered by the provisions of ESI Act, the same was challenged by the Union and an interim order of status-quo was obtained pending the writ petition. Subsequently, the case of the Union was rejected by this Court, thereby making it clear that the provisions of the ESI Act will apply. 2. During the pendency of the interim order, the Management, the second respondent herein, which is the Tamil Nadu Housing Board, granted medical allowance and did not deduct the employees contribution towards ESI subscription. Subsequently after the disposal of the writ petition, the ESI Corporation recovered the entire arrears from the Tamil Nadu Housing Board in terms of Sec.40 of the ESI Act, 1948. After remitting the amount of employer share as well as employee share, the Corporation sent notice to the workers stating that they are liable to pay their share of contribution for the relevant period viz., from 01.04.1992 to 30.06.1998. It is this order dated 11.01.1999 is under challenge. 3. Pending the writ petition, there is an interim order granted from making recoveries. Today when the matter is taken up, Mr.K.M.Ramesh, learned counsel for the petitioner brought to the notice of this Court a Division Bench Judgment of the Punjab High Court in the case of Birla Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mills vs. Sumer Chand reported in ( 1963 2 LLJ 14 ). He placed reliance upon the following passage found in the said Judgment:- "It may be that actually according to S.42(4) no contribution is payable even by the employer in respect of any week in which the employee neither performs any services nor receives any wages, but this aspect of the matter has not been considered, and it does not even arise in the sense that the narrow point for determination is whether the employer, having rightly or wrongly paid to the authority his own and the employees contributions in respect of the weeks during which he was on leave, is entitled to recover the employees contribution out of wages paid for work done in weeks other than those during which he was on leave, which appears to be clearly barred by the proviso in S.42. In the circumstances, I see no reason to interfere and would dismiss the appeal but make no order as to costs since the union has not appeared". 4. The substance of the decision is that once an employer for right or wrong reasons makes payment of the entire contribution, then for any reason whatsoever, the employer is precluded from recovering the said amount except as provided under Section 42 (sub Section (4)) of the ESI Act. Under such circumstances, the writ petition stands allowed. The impugned order will stand quashed. No costs.