Sutapa Chakraborty And ORS. v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

jks Ct.

04.09.25.

W.P.A. 14407 of 2025 Sutapa Chakraborty & Ors.

Vs.

The State West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. Krishna Pada Santra ... ... For the Petitioner Mr. Ajoy Sanyal ... ... for the State Affidavit of service filed in Court today is kept with the record.

The husband/son/father of the petitioners was a Teacher of a Primary School, who died-in-harness on 14.04.2021. The petitioners had completed all pensionrelated formalities after the death of their husband/father/son. The pension payment order was issued on 23.08.2022. However, the concerned authorities delayed and released the gratuity and arrear pension amount on 27.09.2022. The petitioner2 herein seeks interest to be paid on the gratuity amount for the interim period of delay in receipt of the gratuity amount and arrear pension amount.

There is a considerable delay in filing of the writ petition, which the petitioners seek to justify by stating that there is no statutory period of limitation and neither of the parties has 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. 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 petitioners @8% per annum on the gratuity amount and arrear pension amount calculated from 15.04.2021 till the date of 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.)