Biswanath Bail v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

13.12.203 Ct. no. 13 Sl. No. 372 SM In The High Court At Calcutta Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side W.P.A 27488 of 2023 Biswanath Bali -versus The State of West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. Subhrangsu Panda, Ms. Ina Bhattacharyya, Ms. Haritri Roy, ...For the Petitioner.

The affidavit of service filed by the learned Advocate for the petitioner in Court today be kept on record. The petitioner was a teacher of a Primary School who retired on 31.01.2013. He had completed all his pension related formalities prior to his retirement. However, the concerned authorities delayed and released his arrear pension amount on 24.01.2023 in terms of solemn order passed by this Hon'ble Court in WPA 307 of 2016. The petitioner herein seeks interest to be paid on arrear pension for the interim period of delay in receipt of the 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 WP 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 SCC 648 on the issue of limitation relating to payment or refixation 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 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 petitioner @ 8% per annum on the gratuity and arrear pension amount calculated on and from 15.09.2014 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 the aforesaid 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.)