The court held that under the Payment of Gratuity Act, retirees are entitled to full gratuity payments up to Rs.20,00,000 with interest of 7.5% due to untimely payments.

JUDGMENT

1. Since common questions of law and facts are involved, all the writ petitions are taken up together for disposal at the admission stage itself by this common judgment on the consent of learned counsels appearing for the parties.

2. In all the writ petitions the petitioners have prayed for a direction from this court upon the respondents to cause full and final payment of gratuity to the petitioners after adjusting the partial payment already made to them. They have also prayed to direct the respondents to give interest @ 9% per annum on the amount that has been already paid to them. The petitioners were working under the respondent nos. 3 and 4, and on attaining the age of superannuation they have retired on different dates. Necessary particulars in respect of their dates of retirement and claims are mentioned in the table below:

3. Ms. A. Debbarma, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners has submitted that these petitions are covered by the judgment of learned Single Judge dated 16.03.2021 passed in WP(C) No.738 of 2020 with other connected petitions, titled as Shri Ashok Debbarma v. The State of Tripura and Ors.

4. Heard Mr. Kohinoor N Bhattacharjee, learned panel counsel and Mr. K. De, learned Addl. G.A. appearing on behalf of the State-respondents and Mr. K.C. Bhattacharjee, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Respondent-TRTC. Learned counsels for the respondents do not oppose the proposition of Ms. A. Debbarma, learned counsel for the petitioners.

5. I have gone through the aforesaid judgment passed by learned Single Judge and considered. The relevant portion of the judgment of the learned Single Judge may be reproduced here-in-below:

'[4] Mr. Nath, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners has emphatically submitted that the respondents are under statutory obligation in view of the Section 7 (3) of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 to pay the petitioners full gratuity within 30 (thirty) days from the date of their superannuation. But it is evident from the table above that such amount was not paid in time. For example, Mr. Nath, learned counsel has submitted that a lump sum of Rs.10,00,000/- has been paid to the writ petitioners and the said lump sum was paid on several dates as mentioned in the table above.

[5] Mr. Nath, learned counsel has further submitted that by the amendment carried out in sub-section 3 of Section 4 of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, the words 'amount as may be notified from time to time by the Central Government' has been incorporated and the Central Government in exercise of that authority has issued the notification under No.S.O 1420(E) dated 29.03.2018 by enhancing the maximum amount of the gratuity not exceeding twenty lakh rupees.

[6] All the petitioners have retired from their services after 29.03.2018. Therefore, they are entitled to get the remainder of the gratuity beyond Rs.10,00,000/- which was maximum amount of gratuity prior to the said notification as issued by the Central Government in view of the subsequent amendment carried out in sub section 3 of Section 4 of the Payment of Gratuity Act. The said amount has not been paid to the petitioners most arbitrarily. The petitioners had filed representation for release of the said amount with interest. But that was not attended to and there had been no positive yeild.

[7]