Madhusudan Choubey vs State of Jharkhand and Others

Heard learned Counsel for the Appellant.

The Appellant was an employee of the Co-operative Department and while serving in the Department, some amounts were considered to be recoverable from him and during that period his date of superannuation occurred. Therefore, finality of his pensionary dues was not made. After this was settled that the amount which is held to be recoverable is now settled and his pensionary benefits have to be given to him, he was paid the sum, which was the some of his retirement dues, except Rs. 51,397/-. There was a delayed payment of this amount, which has been ordered to be paid by the learned Single Judge, which had carried an interest of 9 percent.

Learned Counsel, arguing the appeal, has argued before us that the amount, which has been paid to him belatedly, much after his retirement, should have carried an interest on it, because that was his property and he had a right to possess that property and once when he has been deprived of the right to possess the property, he was required to be compensated and for that an interest accrued on that amount. In support of that, he has relied on a decision of the Hon''ble Supreme Court in the case of Satinder Singh and Others Vs. Amrao Singh and Others, , wherein, the Hon''ble Supreme Court at paragraph No. 19 has held as under:

It is, however, urged by Mr. Gopal Singh for Respondent 2 that what the claimants are entitled to receive is compensation and since the word "compensation" is used by S. 5(1) both in respect of requisition as well as acquisition it would not be fair to import the general rule about the payment of interest where property is acquired. Compensation, it is urged, should represent the price of the property and there is no justification for adding to the said price any amount by way of damages. We are not impressed by this argument. When a claim for payment of interest is made by a person whose immovable property has been acquired compulsorily he is not making claim for damages properly or technically so called; he is basing his claim on the general rule that if he is deprived of his land he should be put in possession of compensation taken by compulsory acquisition interest should be paid to him on the said amount of compensation. In our opinion, therefore, the fact that S. 5(1) deals with compensation both for requisition and acquisition cannot serve to exclude the application of the general rule to which we have just referred.

We are afraid that the proposition relied on by the learned Counsel for the Appellant will not be governing the facts of this case, because there the amount of interest was payable under the statutory right and since the statutory right was there, therefore, it was a quantified amount and that could be said to be the property and depriving of that property could entail the interest on it.

In the instant case, the Appellant''s right was under a cloud where the department has not been able to finalize as to what was recoverable from him and until that dispute settled, the property cannot be said to be a property, which became recoverable and, thus, if the interest has not been awarded, we do not think that any illegality has been committed as regards the amount, which was paid and subsequently the interest has been awarded at the rate of 9 percent, which is above the current rate of interest.

In that view of the matter, we do not think that that also call for any interference by this Court, which is more than what is being currently conceived of.

There being no force, this appeal is hereby dismissed.