Durbalata Bera vs The State Of West Bengal & Ors
2022 Latest Caselaw 4307 Cal

18.07.2022
 Sl. No.539
   TN

                                W.P.A. 11160 of 2022

                                      Durbalata Bera
                                            -Vs-
                              The State of West Bengal & Ors.



                            Mr. Sudip Sarkar
                                           ... for the petitioner

                            Mr. K.M. Hossain
                                                 ... for the State.

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

                    The husband of the petitioner was teacher of a
              school, District - Purba Medinipur, who died on
              30.01.2018. The first pension payment order was issued
              on 28.01.2019. Under the ROPA Rules, 2019 there was
              revision of the pension and gratuity amount payable to
              the petitioner. The revised pension payment order was
              issued on 18.02.2021 and the revised gratuity amount
              was disbursed on 04.03.2021 in terms of ROPA, 2019.
              The petitioner claims interest on delayed payment of the
              principal gratuity and arrear pension amount and also
              revised arrear pension amount and revised gratuity
              amount.


                    This 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
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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 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
principal gratuity and arrear pension amount calculated
on and from 31.01.2018 till the date of payment and to
pay interest @8% per annum on the revised arrear
pension and revised gratuity 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.)