AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
I.S. Tiwana, J.—The Petitioner was compulsorily retired by the Government of India on November 15, 1969, from the post of Superintendent, Post Office, at Gurdaspur. He successfully impugned this order before the Delhi High Court. The said Court while setting aside the order of his retirement on January 4, 1983, concluded its Order in the following manner:
The departmental proceedings together with the impugned order are declared void and are set aside. The Petitioner would be entitled to all the consequential reliefs, financial and otherwise. All the said benefits should be restored to the Petitioner within 2 months from today. Since the Petitioner had now retired, his pension papers will also have to be finalised quickly.
In pursuance of this order, the Respondent authorities admittedly made the following payments to the Petitioner to satisfy his, claim:
Period Gross amount Deductions on account of pension and income tax Net amount paid Date of payment
19-11-69 to 19-4-76 70, 858-40 40,506-40 30,352 30-12-1981
20-4-76 to 19-4-79 47,682-80 ? 47,682-80 10-2-82
20-4-79 to 31-3-80 17,057/- ? 17,057 15-9-1981
1-4-80 to 19-3-81 9,658 -40 ? 9,658 -40 10-2-82
The stand of the Petitioner now is that since he all through had wrongfully and Unjustifiably been deprived of the amounts which were legitimately due to him the Respondent authorities, were bound to pay the above mentioned amounts with interest. According to him, this relief is implicit in the order of the Delhi High Court the operative part of which has already been reproduced above and in any case this Court being a Court of equity also be pleased to command the Respondent authorities to pay the said amount of interest even now. In support of this stand of his, his learned Counsel, Mr. Kuldip Singh, relies on an earlier judgment of mine in (Des Raj Pahwa v. The State of Punjab) C.W. 436 of 82, decided on 19th February, 1985.''
Having heard the learned Counsel for the parties at some length, I find that the claim of the Petitioner is not devoid of merit. Though I am of the opinion that in view of the above noted judgment of the Delhi High Court the Respondent authorities were under an obligation to pay to the Petitioner the amounts detailed above along with interest for the periods for which the said amounts had been withheld by the authorities, yet I am of the considered view that even at this stage the Respondents can be directed to grant this relief to the Petitioner in exercise of the equitable jurisdiction of this Court. In a similar situation in Des Raj Pahwa''s case (supra) I had granted the payment of interest at the rate of 12 per cent on the amount payable to the Petitioner as arrears of pay, etc.. Today, yet another authoritative pronouncement of the Supreme Court in State of Kerala and Others Vs. M. Padmanabhan Nair, , has been brought to my notice by the learned Counsel for the Petitioner wherein the final Court has made the following meaningful observations in the context of delayed payment of gratuity and pension to the retiree-Plaintiff. He had retired on May 19, 1973 and his pension and gratuity were paid on August 14, 1975, i.e., more than two years and three months after his retirement. While upholding the recovery of interest on the amount of gratuity and pension by way of liquidated damages on account of the delayed payment, the Supreme Court observed thus:
Pension and gratuity are no longer any bounty to be distributed by the Government to its employees on their retirement but have become, under the decisions of this Court, valuable rights 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.
* * * *
Unfortunately such claim for interest that was allowed in Respondent''s favour by the District Court and confirmed by the High Court was at the rate of 6 per cent per annum though interest at 12 per cent had been claimed by the Respondent in his suit. However, since the Respondent acquiesced in his claim being decreed at 6 per cent by not preferring any cross objections in the High Court it would not be proper for us to enhance the rate to 12 per cent per annum which we were otherwise inclined to grant.
These observations, to my mind, apply with full force to the facts of the instant case; more so in the light of the conclusion recorded by the Delhi High Court as reproduced above.
I thus allow this petition and direct the Respondent authorities to pay interest to the Petitioner at the rate of 12 per cent on the above noted amounts for the period the said amounts were withheld by those authorities, within a period of four months from today. The Petitioner is also held entitled to the costs of this petition which I determine at Rs. 500.