PETITIONER:
DR. UMA AGARWAL
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
STATE OF U.P. & ANOTHER.
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 22/03/1999
BENCH:
Hon. CJI., M.JAGANNADHA RAO, & N. SANTOSH HEGDE.
JUDGMENT
M.JAGANNADHA RAO,J.
The petitioner was working as Medical Officer
in the service of the Government of Uttar Pradesh
and retired on 30.4.1993 on completion of 58 years.
She filed this writ petition on 18.11.1995
complaining that she has not been paid her retiral
benefits, namely, gratuity, provident fund, pension
etc. This Court admitted the writ petition on
4.12.1995 and issued notice to the respondents.
The respondents submitted to this Court that, after
her retirement, in spite of the petitioner being
requested to send three sets of pension papers,
petitioner did not send them. This was, however,
denied by the petitioner. This Court directed the
respondents on 12.2.1996 that upon petitioner
furnishing three sets of pension papers with all
relevant documents, the same should be processed.
The respondents then sent a special messenger to
various places to get details of her service and
thereafter the pension papers were sent on
24.12.1996 to the Director General, Medical Health,
U.P. It was stated that provisional pension was
paid in December, 1996 and February, 1997. Arrears
were paid on 17.3.1997. Papers were sent on
29.1.1997 to the Pension Directorate, Lucknow. In
regard to the GIS it was pointed out that the
petitioner had not paid premium of Rs.4770/- and
thereafter, the petitioner deposited the same on
9.12.1997. The GIS was sent to petitioner on
17.12.1997, 90% of GPF was paid on 20.1.1998,
balance was paid on 25.4.1998. The Gratuity was
paid on 25.6.1997 and the encashment of earned
leave was also paid on the same date. The
petitioner demanded interest while the respondents
contended that no interest was payable. Though
some other questions relating to promotion etc.
were referred to in the writ petition, learned
senior counsel for the petitioner stated that the
petitioner is confining this writ petition only in
regard to the pensionary benefits. Now the only
question that remains to be decided is the question
relating to payment of interest. Learned counsel
for the petitioner requested us that some
guidelines may be issued regarding the steps to be
taken by departments for prompt payment of retiral
benefits.
Now-a-days, several writ petitions are being
filed in this Court and various High Courts seeking
relief for disbursement of retiral benefits,
because of inordinate delays in payment of these
benefits. As Krishna Iyer, J. stated in State of
Mysore vs. C.R.Sheshadri & Others [1974 (4) SCC
308], ‘a retired government official is sensitive
to delay in drawing monetary benefits. And to
avoid posthumous satisfaction of the pecuniary
expectation of the superannuated public servant -
not unusual in government’, it is becoming
necessary to issue directions, in several cases,
for early payment of these dues. In yet another
case in State of Kerala & Others vs. M.Padmanabhan
Nair [1985 (1) SCC 429], this Court had occasion to
point out that usually ‘the delay occurs by reason
of non-production of the L.P.C(last pay
certificate) and the N.L.C.(no liability
certificate) from the concerned departments’ but
both the documents pertain to matters, records
whereof would be with the concerned government
departments. It was observed that inasmuch as the
date of retirement of every government servant was
very much known in advance, it was difficult to
appreciate why the process of collecting the
requisite information and issuance of the abovesaid
two documents should not be completed well before
the date of retirement so that the payment of
gratuity amount could be made on the date of
retirement or on the following day and the pension,
at the expiry of the following month. This Court
stated that the necessity for prompt payment of the
retirement dues to a government servant immediately
after his retirement could not be over-emphasised
and it would not be unreasonable to direct that
there would be a liability to pay penal interest on
these retirement benefits. In several cases,
decided by this Court, interest at the rate of 12%
per annum has been directed to be paid by the
State.
As these delays have increased in the last few
years, it has become necessary to refer to the
Rules and Departmental instructions which do
contain adequate provisions for compilation of all
the necessary data and preparation of the necessary
documents for disbursement of retiral benefits,
well in advance. The present case arises from
Uttar Pradesh and we find that the Government of
Uttar Pradesh has issued instructions to the effect
that "the Head Office, or other authority
responsible for preparing the pension papers should
initiate the pension case, two years before
retirement of the Government servant. At that
stage, the essential information necessary for
working out the qualifying service should be
collected, and the entire service book and other
service records should be examined and completed
with a view to remove deficiencies and
imperfections, if any, in the service book/records.
This process should be completed" atleast eight
months in advance of the date of retirement of the
Government servant. The actual computation and
preparation of the pension papers should then start
and "any deficiency or imperfection, or omission
which still remains in the service records should
be ignored, and the determination of qualifying
service should be proceeded with on the basis of
entries in the service records, whatever the degree
of imperfection to which it might have been
possible to bring them by that time". "The process
of determining the qualifying service and the
average emoluments and the admissible pension and
gratuity should be positively completed within a
period of 2 months and the pension papers sent to
the Accountant-General not later than 6 months
before the date of retirement. The said office is
to issue the pension payment order (including the
order for the payment of the Death-cum-retirement
gratuity) one month in advance of the date of
retirement". "It should be ensured that the
payment of superannuation pension commences on the
first of the month following the month in which the
government servant retires". This appears to be
the clear position in Uttar Pradesh.
We may in this connection also refer to F.R.58
which relates to "preparation of pension papers".
It states that "every Head of Office shall
undertake the work of preparation of pension papers
in Form 7 two years before the date on which the
Government servant is due to retire on
superannuation or on the date on which he proceeds
on leave preparatory to retirement whichever is
earlier". F.R.59 deals with the ‘stages for the
completion of pension papers’. Sub-clause (1)(a)
bears the heading, the first stage, and refers to
the verification of service details. There are
five parts in this sub-clause. Sub-clause (1)(b)
refers to the second stage, namely, making good the
omissions in the service book. Sub-clause 1(b)(ii)
is important and it states very clearly as follows:
"Every effort shall be made to complete the
verification of service, as in clause (a) and to
make good omissions, imperfections or deficiencies
referred to sub-clause (i) of this clause. Any
omission, imperfections or deficiencies including
the portion of service shown as unverified in the
service book which it has not been possible to
verify in accordance with the procedure laid down
in clause (a) shall be ignored and service
qualifying for pension shall be determined on the
basis of the entries in the book."
This directive in the rules is obviously
intended to see that once the period is quite close
to 10 months before the retirement of an employee,
further time is not to be wasted in verifying data
which it has not been possible to verify by
following the procedure in sub-clause (1)(a) of
F.R.59. Sub-clause (1)(c) refers to the third
stage and it says that atleast 10 months before the
date of retirement, the Head office shall take
various steps by issuing a Certificate to the
government servant and the officer can offer his
remarks and thereafter, he shall be furnished Form
4 and Form 5 which he has to fill-up and send to
the Head Office atleast 8 months before the date of
retirement. F.R.60 refers to ‘completion of
pension papers’ in Part-I of Form 7 atleast 6
months before the date of retirement of the
government servant. F.R.61 deals with the
‘Forwarding of Pension Papers to Accounts Officer’,
in Form 5 and Form 7 with a covering letter in Form
8 along with service book duly completed, upto
date, and other documents. This has to be done
atleast 6 months before the date of retirement.
Rule 63 refers to recovery of amounts due by the
government servant and the particulars in this
behalf are to be sent atleast 2 months before the
date of retirement, so that the same could be
recovered from the gratuity. F.R.64 deals with
provisional pension. F.R.65 requires the Accounts
Officer to assess the amount of pension and
gratuity atleast one month before the date of
retirement. F.R.68 requires interest to be paid on
delayed payment of gratuity. As already stated, in
cases of delayed payment of pension, this Court has
levied interest at 12% per annum in several cases.
We have referred in sufficient detail to the
Rules and instructions which prescribe the time-
schedule for the various steps to be taken in
regard to the payment of pension and other retiral
benefits. This we have done to remind the various
governmental departments of their duties in
initiating various steps atleast two years in
advance of the date of retirement. If the
rules/instructions are followed strictly much of
the litigation can be avoided and retired
government servants will not feel harassed because
after all, grant of pension is not a bounty but a
right of the government servant. Government is
obliged to follow the Rules mentioned in the
earlier part of this order in letter and in spirit.
Delay in settlement of retiral benefits is
frustrating and must be avoided at all costs. Such
delays are occurring even in regard to family
pensions for which too there is a prescribed
procedure. This is indeed unfortunate. In cases
where a retired government servant claims interest
for delayed payment, the Court can certainly keep
in mind the time-schedule prescribed in the
rules/instructions apart from other relevant
factors applicable to each case.
The case before us is a clear example of
department delay which is not excusable. The
petitioner retired on 30.4.1993 and it was only
after 12.2.1996 when an interim order was passed in
this writ petition that the respondents woke up and
started work by sending a special messenger to
various places where the petitioner had worked.
Such an exercise should have started atleast in
1991, two years before retirement. The amounts due
to the petitioner were computed and the payments
were made only during 1997-98. The petitioner was
a cancer patient and was indeed put to great
hardship. Even assuming that some letters were
sent to the petitioner after her retirement on
30.3.1993 seeking information from her, an
allegation which is denied by the petitioner, that
cannot be an excuse for the lethargy of the
department inasmuch as the rules and instructions
require these actions to be taken long before
retirement. The exercise which was to completed
long before retirement was in fact started long
after the petitioner’s retirement.
Therefore, this is a fit case for awarding
interest to the petitioner. We do not think that
for the purpose of the computation of interest, the
matter should go back. Instead, on the facts of
this case, we quantify the interest payable at Rs.1
lakh and direct that the same shall be paid to the
petitioner within two months from today.
The writ petition is disposed of accordingly.
There will be no order as to costs.