Suresh Halder And ORS. v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

A-101 22.09.2025 AGM In The High Court At Calcutta Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side WPA 10502 of 2025 Suresh Halder & Ors.

-versus The State of West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. Sharanya Chatterjee.

... for the petitioners.

Mr. Subhendu Sengupta.

... for the State.

1. Affidavit-of-service filed in Court today be kept with the records.

2. The matter relates to the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana, a flagship scheme of the Government of India, which is aimed at promoting sustainable and responsible development of the fisheries sector. The project is a beneficiary oriented one and certain assistance is provided to the beneficiaries by the Government in stages.

3. The petitioners claim to be beneficiaries of the project. Their grievance is that despite raising bills, payment has not been released in their favour. Prayer has been made to direct the State to release their dues.

4. Learned advocate representing the State respondents submits, upon instruction that, during scrutiny of the documents submitted by the petitioners, some anomalies were detected.

5. It was detected that there was some deviation in implementation of the scheme by the petitioners from the approved model scheme. The matter was referred to the Department of Fisheries. The Department has accorded approval for release of Government assistance in favour of

the petitioners as special case by maintaining all necessary norms.

6. The Assistant Director of Fisheries has been instructed to re-submit the claim of the petitioners as per revised guidelines duly approved by the District Level Committee headed by the District Magistrate.

7. Upon receipt of the claims and subject to adherence of all formalities and procedures as prescribed under the scheme guidelines, each claim shall be examined and verified on a case-to-case basis. Fund disbursement shall be made in respect of those claims that are found to be complete, correct and in conformity with the stipulated norms.

8. It appears from the instruction forwarded by the Director of Fisheries that the authority has already proceeded to take steps in the matter. The authority is directed to proceed with the same and ensure that payment to the beneficiaries, if entitled to, in accordance with the scheme guidelines is released without any further delay.

9. The documents to be provided by the beneficiaries and any further formalities to be complied with by the beneficiaries shall be made known to them. The petitioners shall be bound to comply with all necessary formalities for receiving payment.

10.

Steps shall be taken in the matter at the earliest and the petitioners shall be made known about the fate of their prayer for payment positively within a period of twelve weeks from the date of communication of this order. 11.

The writ petition stands disposed of.

12.

Report forwarded by the Additional Director of Fisheries, West Bengal dated 19th May, 2025 and the report forwarded by the Director of Fisheries, West Bengal dated 15th July, 2025 are taken on record.

13.

Urgent certified photocopy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties expeditiously on compliance of usual legal formalities.

( Amrita Sinha, J.)