Petitioner was enrolled in the Army in EME Branch, wherefrom he was discharged on 29-09-1955. He made relentless efforts for the release of his pension for a space of 38 years, but without any positive response. This necessitated the petitioner to approach the Court claming the release of his pension by filing OWP No. 1379/1993. It has never been the stand of the respondents in the aforesaid writ petition that the petioner is neither eligible for grant of pension nor it was found credible that the petitioner has received gratuity in lieu of pension. While deciding the writ petition, the Court held as under :

"In the circumstances I deem it appropriate to direct the respondents to examin the petitioners case in the right earnest uninfluenced by the destruction of his service record and to grant him appropriate relief of reeleasing pention, in case it is established that he had put in pensionable service in the army. The process of consideration shall be finalized in six months from the date of receipt of this order, even if it entail re-constrution of the records. This shall be without prejudice to the claim of the petitioner for payment of interest to him. In the event it is found that the respondents had deliberatly delayed the payment of pension to him, petitioner shall be at liberty to move the Court again, if so advised."

2. The pension claim of the petitioner was, however, processed by the Sanctioning Authority and Pension Payment Order was issued by CDA (P), Allahabad on 16th june, 1995 and first payment of pension with arrears was released to the petitioner by the Pension by the Pension Disbursing Authority on 25th July, 1995. According to the petitioner, pensionary benefits have been withheld by the respondents illegally, arbitrarily and without any justification. The pension and other retiral benfits were required to be paid to the petitioner in time. His further submission is that in the absence of any justifiable explanation about the delay on the part of the employed in releasing the retiral and other benifits, he must be compensated with interest on the amount to be paid to him. The petitioner, thus, claims interest @18% per annum on the wrongful withholding of the amount of pension from the date the petitioner become entitled to the grant of payment of pension on the date of his retirement.

3. The stand taken by the respondents in their demurrer is that after the discharged of the petitioner, he must have received either pension or service gratuity. It is admitted by the respondents that after his discharge from service as to wether the petitioner that after his discharge from service as to wether the petitioner was granted pension or gratuity, the same could not be ascertained in the absence of service documents, which were destroyed by burning, being 25 years old non-pensionable case. It was further sumitted that the petitioners claim for interest was also considered in writ petitio No. 1379/1993, but no interest was granted to the petitioner. In such circumstances, his claim for interest cannot be adjudicated upon in this writ petition.

4. Heared the learned counsel appearing for the respective parties and also perused the record, meticulously.

5. It is by now well settled that pension and gratuity are no longer any bounty to be distributed by the Government to its employees on their retirement, but vaaluable right and property in their hands and any culpable delay in settlement and disbursement thereof must be visited with the penalty of payment of interest at the current market rate till actual payment. The liability to pay penal interest on these dues at the current market rates commences at the expiry of two months from the date of retirement. In the absence of specific plea in their counter by the respondents as to whether pension/gratuity had been paid to the petitioner after his discharge, the claim put forth by the the petitioner sounds credible on the face of it that no pension has been paid to him, despit

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