Dipendranath Chakraborty vs The State Of West Bengal & Ors

29.06.2022
Court No.13
Item No.390
AP
                                 WPA 10481 of 2022

                          Dipendranath Chakraborty
                                      Vs.
                        The State of West Bengal & Ors.


              Mr. Krishna Pada Santra
                                                ... ... for the petitioner


                    Affidavit of service filed in court today is kept
              with the record.

                  The petitioner was an Assistant Teacher of a High
              School, who retired on 29.02.2016. The first pension
              payment order was issued on 03.02.2016. Under the
              ROPA Rules, 2019 there was revision of the pensionary
              and gratuity amount payable to the petitioner.         The
              revised   pension    payment   order   was    issued   on
              19.03.2021 and the revised gratuity and revised arrear
              pension amount was disbursed on 06.04.2021 in
              terms of ROPA, 2019.      The petitioner claims interest
              on delayed payment of the revised gratuity and revised
              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 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. 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
                      2




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 revised gratuity and revised arrear
pension amount calculated on and from 14.02.2020
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 these 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.)