Samarendra Banerjee vs The State Of West Bengal & Ors
2022 Latest Caselaw 5308 Cal

11.08.2022
  Sl. No.696
    ap

                                  W.P.A. 12310 of 2022

                                     Samarendra Banerjee
                                              -Vs-
                                The State of West Bengal & Ors.

                      Mr. Arun Khutia.
                                            ... ... for the petitioner

                      Mr. Rajendra Chaturvedi.
                                          ....for the State.


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

                      The petitioner was a 'Clerk' of a High School, who
               retired on 31.01.2017. The first pension payment order
               was issued on 24.01.2017. 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 11.02.2021 and the gratuity and
               revised arrear pension was d


               isbursed on 16.03.2021 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
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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
revised gratuity and revised arrear pension 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.)