Bandal Jumar Maiti vs The State Of West Bengal & Ors
2022 Latest Caselaw 1749 Cal

04.04.2022 RUP

W.P.A. 5449 of 2022

Bandal Jumar Maiti

Vs.

The State of West Bengal & Ors..

Ms. Sreyasree Chowdhury. ... for the petitioner. Mr. Jahar Datta, Mr. Bipin Ghosh. ... for the State. Mrs. Tapati Samanta. ... for the D.L.O.

The affidavit of service filed in Court today is

kept on record.

The petitioner was an approved Librarian of

Ramkrishna Smriti Pathagar who retired from service on

30.06.2006. The petitioner had completed all pension-

related formalities. However, the concerned authorities

delayed and released the gratuity as well as arrear

pension amount on 01.09.2008. The petitioner herein

seeks interest to be paid on the gratuity as well as arrear

pension amount 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 none of the parties have suffered

due to the 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 and others) 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 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 petitioner, 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

cent per annum on the gratuity as well as arrear pension

amount calculated from 01.07.2006 till the date of

payment. Such payment is to be made within a period of

eight weeks from the date of communication of this order.

This writ petition is accordingly disposed of

without any order as to costs.

Since no affidavit is called for, the allegations

made in the writ petition are deemed to have been

denied.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if

applied for, be made available to the parties upon

compliance with the requisite formalities.

(Moushumi Bhattacharya, J.)