Government employees are entitled to interest on delayed retirement benefits when payments are unjustifiably withheld, as established by precedent.

JUDGMENT

Namit Kumar, J. (Oral)

The petitioner has filed the instant writ petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India seeking a writ of mandamus for issuance of directions to the respondents to grant 18% interest on the delayed payments of retrial benefits such as gratuity, arrears of pension and arrears on account of release of time bound promotional scales after 09 years and 16 years of service.

2. Brief facts of the case, as have been pleaded in the petition, are that the petitioner joined the service of the respondents as Store Munshi on work charge basis on 01.03.1977 and thereafter as regular Telephonist from 05.08.1978. He was promoted to the post of Upper Division Clerk in 1987 and thereafter, as Revenue Accountant on 02.04.1991 and retired as such on 30.04.2010, on attaining the age of superannuation of 58 years.

3. It is the case of the petitioner that pursuance to the financial circular dated 23.04.1990, the petitioner was entitled for grant of time bound promotional scales on completion of 09 years and 16 years of service w.e.f. 01.04.2000 and 01.04.2007, respectively. He submitted application/option dated 11.05.2001 for the release of 09 years promotional scale and thereafter, on 15.10.2008 he submitted another application/option for the release of 16 years time bound promotional scale, however, despite submitting various representations including representation dated 30.06.2014, the said benefits were not granted to him which compelled him to approach this Court by filing CWP No.25651 of 2014, which was disposed of vide order dated 16.12.2014 with a direction to decide the representation of the petitioner by passing a speaking order, within a period of 03 months and in pursuance thereto, vide order dated 16.04.2015 (Annexure P-3), the petitioner was granted the 09 year time bound promotional scale w.e.f. 01.04.2005 and 16 years time bound promotional scale w.e.f. 01.04.2008. It has further been submitted that the retrial dues of the petitioner were released after a considerable delay and the details of the payments received by the petitioner are as under :-

Since the payment of gratuity, arrears of pension and arrears on account of time bound promotional scales have been released to the petitioner after a considerable delay, therefore, he is entitled for the grant of interest.

4. Reply on behalf of the respondents has been filed, wherein it has been stated as under :-

"5. That the content of Para No.5 are matter of record as per as the sanction of 9 years time bound and 16 years time bound promotional scales are concerned. However, the petitioner was not given the scale due to the pendency of chargesheets/show cause notices as same were not decided :