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Judgment
[1] Heard Mr. K. Nath, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners as well as Mr. T.D. Majumder, learned counsel appearing for the respondents.
[2] These writ petitions being W.P.(C) No.596 of 2017 [Sri Bhupal Chandra Das vs. The State of Tripura & Others], W.P.(C) No.598 of 2017 [Sri Ranjit Roy vs. The State of Tripura & Others] and W.P.(C) No.599 of 2017 [Sri Manoranjan Sen vs. State of Tripura & Others] are consolidated for disposal by a common judgment inasmuch as a common question on payment of interest for delayed payment of the gratuity in terms of Section 7(3A) of the Gratuity Act, 1972 is the sheet-anchor of the controversy, emerged in these writ petitions. There is no dispute that the petitioners have retired on the different dates as reflected in the table below:
Table -1
Sl.
No.
Writ Petition No.
Name of the writ petitioner
Date of superannuation
1
W.P.(C) No.596 of 2017
Sri Bhupal Ch. Das
31.08.2011
2
W.P.(C) No.598 of 2017
Sri Ranjit Roy
30.04.2011
3
W.P.(C) No.599 of 2017
Sri Manoranjan Sen
30.06.2011
Even there is no dispute that the gratuity in terms of the amendment as carried out in Section 4 of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1973 has been paid to the petitioners on different dates which are further shown in the table below:
Table -2
Sl.
No.
Writ Petition No.
Name of the writ petitioner
Date of payment of gratuity
1
W.P.(C) No.596 of 2017
Sri Bhupal Ch. Das
06.07.2016
2
W.P.(C) No.598 of 2017
Sri Ranjit Roy
13.07.2016
3
W.P.(C) No.599 of 2017
Sri Manoranjan Sen
06.07.2016
[3] For the belated payment, the petitioners have approached this court to pay the interest in terms of Section 7(3A) of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 @9% per annum. Section 7(3) of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 provides as under:
"[3] The employer shall arrange to pay the amount of gratuity within thirty days from the date it becomes payable to the person to whom the gratuity is payable."
If not paid, Section 7(3A) of the said act would come into play. Section 7(3A) of the said act provides as under:
[3A] If the amount of gratuity payable under sub- section (3) is not paid by the employer within the period specified in sub-section (3), the employer shall pay, from the date on which the gratuity becomes payable to the date on which it is paid, simple interest at such rate, not exceeding the rate notified by the Central Government from time to time for repayment of long-term deposits, as that Government may, by notification specify.
Provided that no such interest shall be payable if the delay in the payment is due to the fault of the employee and the employer has obtained permission in writing from the controlling authority for the delayed payment on this ground."
[4] It is an admitted fact as is evident from the communication dated 05.03.2016, Annexure-3 to the writ petitions, that no such permission as referred in the proviso to Section 7(3A) of the Gratuity Act was given by the controlling authority, the Labour Commissioner, Government of Tripura. On the contrary, the controlling authority by the said communication asked the Managing Director, Tripura Forest Development and Plantation Corporation Ltd. [the TFDPC Ltd. in short] to pay the interest in terms of Section 7(3A) of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 and to pay the gratuity within 30(thirty) days from the date of superannuation. No record has been submitted by the respondents that they had taken permission for delayed payment.
[5] On the contrary, Mr. T.D. Majumder, learned counsel appearing for the respondents referring to a note of the Finance Department, Annexure-R/2 to the reply filed by the respondents No.1 and 2, has submitted that the Finance Department regretted their proposal whereby the board had decided to pay the interest for delayed payment and such proposal is available in the Note No.1 which has been filed with their reply as Annexure-R/1. The respondents have categorically submitted that the payment of interest on the delayed payment of gratuity is the compulsion of the employer to provide to its employee but in the functioning of the TFDPC, the approval of the Finance Department is mandatory under the Delegation of the Financial Power Rules as enacted by the Government of Tripura. If it is deviated that will be treated as the financial indiscipline. Therefore, the TFDPC Ltd. had approached the Finance Department which however for the reasons, available at Annexure-R/2, regretted the said proposal.
[6] On the other hand, Mr. K. Nath, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners has submitted that under the similar circumstances, this court by the order dated 08.08.2016 delivered in W.P.(C) No.264 of 2016 and others had directed as under:
"The law is now well settled that financial constraints cannot be a ground for denying monetary benefits legitimately due to the employees. In our considered view, the respondent authorities have been negligent, or, at any rate, inaction in not making the payment of gratuity payable to the petitioners in accordance with the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 as amended by Act 15 of 2010 which is a problem of their own creation. Therefore, they cannot avoid their statutory liability payable under Section 4(3) of the Act and of the interest payable under Section 7(3A) of the Act. However, considering the difficulty faced by the respondent authorities, we think that the ends of justice would be met if the interest payable under Section 7(3A) of the Act is reduced to 8% per annum w.e.f. after 30 days after the respective dates of superannuation of the petitioners.
These writ petitions are, therefore, disposed of by directing the respondent authorities to pay the balance amount of gratuity payable to the petitioners with interest @ 8% per annum so payable within 30 days of their respective dates of superannuation/retirement. The entire exercise shall be completed within 45 days from the date of receipt of this order."
[6] On scrutiny of the records it appears that the respondents had paid the gratuity in terms of the pre-amended provisions of Section 4(3) of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 to the petitioners in due time and there cannot be any claim of interest on that amount. But, in terms of the amended provisions of Section 4(3) of the Payment of Gratuity Act, the additional amount has been paid on the dates as shown in the Table-2 after a long delay. Hence, the claim for interest is raised on the additional amount of gratuity. Therefore, the respondents are directed to pay the interest to the petitioners from the day of expiry of 30(thirty) days from the respective dates of their superannuation as shown in the Table-1 till the date when the remaining part of the gratuity in terms of the amended provision of Section 4(3) of Payment of Gratuity Act was paid, @8% within a period of 6(six) weeks from the day when a copy of this order would be placed by the petitioners.
In terms of this order, the Finance Department shall accord the necessary approval in favour of the TFDPC Ltd.
These writ petitions are allowed to the extent as indicated above.
There shall be no order as to costs.
A copy of this order be furnished to Mr. T.D. Majumder, learned counsel appearing for the TFDPC Ltd. for onward transmission.