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

06.12.19 Ct. No. 2 Calcutta High Court In the Circuit Bench at Jalpaiguri Appellate Jurisdiction W.P.A. 951 of 2019 Jayanta Kumar Gangopadhyay -VersusThe State of West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. Sandip Ghosh Mr. Debajit Kundu ...For the Petitioner Mr. Hirak Barman Ms. Bedashruti Bose ...For State Respondents Affidavit-of-service filed in Court today is kept akb with the record.

The wife of the petitioner was a Teacher of a Primary School, Jalpaiguri, who died-in-harness on November 10, 2008. The petitioner had completed all her pension related formalities just after the death of his wife. However, the concerned authorities delayed and released the gratuity amount and arrear pension on 27.02.2010. The petitioner herein seeks interest to be paid on the gratuity amount and arrear pension for the interim period of delay in receipt of the gratuity amount and arrear pension. 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.

17557 (W) of 2017 (Narayan Chandra Saha vs. State of West Bengal & Ors.) wherein a co-ordinate Bench had relied upon the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Union of India vs.

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 amount and arrear pension calculated from 11.12.2008 till the date of actual payment, that is, 27.02.2010. Such payment is to be made within a period of eight weeks from the date of communication of this order.

With the aforesaid observation, 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. ( Shekhar B. Saraf, J.)