Puspa Bhattacharya v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

12.03.2021.

W.P.A. 5879 of 2021 ab Ct. 15 Puspa Bhattacharya Vs The State West Bengal & Ors. Mr. Biswajit Mal ... For the Petitioner.

Mr. Krishna Pada Santra .. For the State.

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

The material facts of the case are admitted and hence I have not called for affidavits.

The petitioner's husband was an approved Head Teacher of a Primary School. The petitioner's husband retired from service on 31.10.2006. The petitioner's husband died on 10.02.2009. The first pension payment order was issued on 19.04.2007. Under the ROPA Rules 2009 there was revision of the pensionary and gratuity amount payable to the petitioner. The revised pension payment order was issued on 08.07 2013 and the revised arrear pension amount was disbursed on 02.09.2013 in terms of ROPA, 2009. The petitioner claims interest on delayed payment of the 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 petitioner that accordingly the petition should be allowed.

The petitioner relies upon an order in W.P. No. 17557 (W) of 2017 (Narayan Chandra Saha Vs. State of West Bengal & Ors.) wherein a co-ordinate Bench had relied upon the Supreme Court judgement in the case of Union of India Vs. Tarsem Singh, reported in (2008) 8 S.C.C. 648 on the issue of limitation relating to payment or re-fixation of 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 petitioner, 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 petitioner @ 8% per annum on the revised arrear pension calculated from 01st June, 2009 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. The writ petition is disposed of, however, no order as to costs.

Since no affidavit is called for, the allegations made in the writ petition are deemed to have been denied.

Urgent certified website copy of this order, if applied for, be made available to the parties upon compliance with the requisite formalities.

(Rajarshi Bharadwaj, J.)