Jayanta Kumar Das v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

09-12-2025 Item No.51 Subrata Bhattacharyya IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side AR(C) WPA No.24581 of 2025 Jayanta Kumar Das -vsThe State of West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. Sourav Mitra ...for the petitioner Mr. Bhakti Prasad Das ...for the State 1.

The wife of the petitioner was an approved headmistress of a school and expired while in service on November 26, 2019. E-pension payment order has been issued on December 1, 2022 and payment actually stood disbursed in favour of the petitioner on December 19, 2022. The petitioner seeks interest on account of delayed payment of the terminal dues.

2.

The District Inspector of Schools (SE), Purba Bardhaman has forwarded a report dated November 13, 2025 wherefrom it appears that the pension file of the teacher was initiated and submitted online to the head of the institution on July 17, 2020 and a hard copy of the same was submitted on July 22, 2020.

3.

Delay occurred for obtaining post facto approval of the past continuous service of the teacher for grant of CAS benefit. The post facto approval of CAS benefit was accorded by the Deputy Secretary, Government of West Bengal only on September 21, 2022 and thereafter the PPO was issued on December 1, 2022.

4.

The DI of Schools has mentioned that without the post facto approval of the CAS benefit, the pension-sanctioning authority was unable to proceed with the pension file of the petitioner. 5.

As the teacher died-in-harness, accordingly, the pension file was not made ready earlier. The process for initiating the pension file started only after the death of the employee.

6.

On a perusal of the report forwarded by the DI of Schools, the Court is of the opinion that it is not a fit case for directing the authority for grant of interest on account of delayed payment of the terminal dues. The delay was caused primarily because of procedural reasons. The same cannot be attributed to any particular person.

7.

The writ petition thus fails and is hereby dismissed.

8.

All parties are to act on the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court.

9.

Certified copy of this order, if applied for, shall be made available to the parties.

[Amrita Sinha, J]