Swarup Chowdhury vs The State Of West Bengal And Ors

OD-19
                                      ORDER SHEET
                         IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA
                           Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction
                                  ORIGINAL SIDE

                                 WPO/1276/2023

                            SWARUP CHOWDHURY
                                    VS
                     THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL AND ORS


  BEFORE:
  The Hon'ble JUSTICE LAPITA BANERJI
  Date : 22nd September, 2023
                                                               Appearance:
                                                       Mr. Debdutta Basu, Adv.
                                                               ... for the petitioner.




        The Court :- Affidavit of service filed in Court today be retained with

the records.

        In this writ petition, the petitioner claims for disbursement of interest

at the rate of 10 per cent per annum on the retiral benefits aggregating to

Rs.36,02,270/- (Rupees Thirty Six Lakh Two Thousand Two Hundred and

Seventy only) from December 1, 2020 (date succeeding the date of

retirement) till March 8, 2021 (date of actual payment). The petitioner

worked as permanent employee with Calcutta Tramways Co. (1978) Ltd.,

now known as West Bengal Transport Corporation Limited (WBTCL).

        The writ petitioner retired from service with effect from November 30,

2020.

        The issue of payment of interest on delayed payment of retiral

benefits has been considered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in two
                                       2


judgments reported in 2021 (11) SCC 543 (State of Andhra Pradesh &

Anr. Vs. Dinavahi Lakshmi Kameswari) and also in 2022 (4) SCC 627

(Dr. A. Selvaraj vs. CBM College & Ors.). In Selvaraj (supra) it was held

that the delay in payment of retiral benefits was due to no fault on the part

of the petitioner. It was an obligation on the part of the employer to process

the retiral benefits and pay the same within one month of the date of the

petitioner's retirement.   Since the payment was not made within one

month, the interest was held to date back to the date succeeding the date

of the petitioner's retirement.

      Following the aforesaid judgments of the Apex Court and also the

judgment passed by Co-ordinate Bench of this Hon'ble Court in WPO No.

2279 of 2022 (Swapan Kumar Das vs. The State of West Bengal), this

Court holds that interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum should be

paid by the respondent company to the petitioner from December 1, 2020

to March 8, 2021 within three months from date. In the event there is any default in payment of interest within the stipulated period, the rate of interest will stand increased to 10 per cent per annum being the rate payable at present under the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972.

Since affidavits have not been invited in the present writ petition, the allegations made in the writ petition are deemed not to have been admitted by the parties.

With the aforesaid directions, the writ petition, being WPO No. 1276 of 2023 is disposed of.

All parties are to act on a server copy of downloaded from the official website of this Hon'ble Court.

Urgent certified website copies of this order, if applied for, be made available to the parties subject to compliance with all requisite formalities.

(LAPITA BANERJI, J.) mg