Calcutta High Court
Ragho Sharma vs The State Of West Bengal And Ors on 29 September, 2023
OD-41
ORDER SHEET
IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA
CONSTITUTIONAL WRIT JURISDICTION
ORIGINAL SIDE
WPO/1494/2023
RAGHO SHARMA
VS
THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL AND ORS
BEFORE:
The Hon'ble JUSTICE LAPITA BANERJI
Date: 29th September, 2023.
Appearance:
Mr. Debdutta Basu, Adv.
For the Petitioner
Mr. S. Sengupta, Sr. Adv.
Mr. S. Dutta, Adv.
For the State
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. 51,26,978/- (Rupees Fifty One Lakhs Twenty Six
Thousand Nine Hundred Seventy Eight Only) from February 1, 2022
(date succeeding the date of retirement) till April 6, 2022 (the date on
which is retiral benefits have actually been paid). The petitioner worked
2
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 January 31,
2022.
The issue of payment of interest on delayed payment of retiral
benefits has been considered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in two
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 judgements 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 February 1, 2022
to April 6, 2022 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 Gratuities 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.1494 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.)
A Dey/mg
