Manik Chandra Mandal And ANR. v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

16.04.2024 Sl. No. 65 ap W.P.A. 4597 of 2024 Manik Chandra Mandal & Anr.

-VsThe State of West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. Krishna Pada Santra.

... ... for the petitioner Mr. Biman Halder.

...for the State.

Affidavit of service filed in court today is kept with the record.

The deceased employee was an Assistant Teacher of a Primary School, who died-in-harness on 21.09.2017. The first pension payment order was issued on 15.02.2019. Under the ROPA Rules, 2019 there was revision of the pensionary and gratuity amount payable to the petitioner. The revised pension payment order was issued on 10.03.2022 and the gratuity and revised arrear pension was disbursed on 18.03.2022 in terms of ROPA, 2019. The petitioners claim interest on delayed payment of the revised gratuity and revised arrear pension amount. There is a considerable delay in filing of the writ petition, which the petitioner seeks to justify by stating that there is no statutory period of limitation and neither parties have suffered due to this delay. It is the submission of the petitioners that accordingly the petition should be allowed.

The petitioners rely upon an order in W.P. 17557 (W) of 2017 (Narayan Chandra Saha vs. State of West Bengal & Ors.) wherein a co-ordinate Bench had relied upon the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Union of India vs.

pay or pension wherein the Apex Court had held that relief may be granted in spite of delay as it does not affect the rights of the third party.

In view of the above and after hearing the learned Counsel for the parties, I direct the Director of Pension, Provident Fund and Group Insurance, Government of West Bengal as also the concerned Treasury Officer to pay interest to the petitioners @ 8% per annum on the revised gratuity and revised arrear pension calculated on and from 14.02.2020 till the date of actual payment. Such payment is to be made within a period of eight weeks from the date of communication of this order.

With these observations, the writ petition is disposed of.

Since, no affidavit-in-opposition has been called for, the allegations made in the writ petition are deemed to have not been admitted by the respondents.

There will be no order as to costs.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties, on priority basis. (Rajasekhar Mantha, J.)