In a classic case of labyrinthine bureaucratic red-tape, a teacher of a government-run high school in Odisha’s Cuttack district will finally get his post-retirement revised pension dues and salary arrears, ironically more than a decade after his death!

Thanks to the intervention of the Orissa High Court, the 83-year-old widow of the deceased teacher Prafulla Chandra Mohanty is now entitled to get the legitimate dues with the court directing the government to disburse the dues in a month’s span.

As officials in the school and mass education department dragged their feet, Prafulla Kumar Mohanty, a teacher from the Salipur education district had been denied the legitimate post-retirement benefits including the revised monthly pension.

Following his retirement and denial of benefits, Mohanty had moved to the High Court in 1999 and had sought for the award of the time-bound advanced scale of payment. The court had pronounced favourable order in 2004 and had directed the government to pay the dues on the ground that the petitioner had completed 15 years of service. The high court in its order 17 years back had ordered that the petitioner’s pay shall be fixed as the time-bound scale of pay. The pension shall be circulated on the basis of the last pay drawn with all consequential benefits to be worked out within a period of six months.

However, the State government had challenged the high court order through a special leave petition before the Supreme Court. While Mohanty had passed away in 2010, the Supreme Court had dismissed the government’s SLP and had upheld the HC’s order in 2018.

Despite the apex court order, the government had dilly-dallied in paying the deceased teacher’s dues to his family members.

Finding no other way, Minalata Mohanty- 83-year-old widow of the later teacher- had sought the High Court to intervene in the matter.

“Since he had retired in the meantime and he was also entitled to re-fixation of pension and the differential on account of subsequent benefits as per the judgment of the court,” a single bench of the High Court Justice Biswanath Rath ruled.

“The government is directed to calculate the whole benefits along with re-fixation of pension of the petitioner’s husband so long as he was serving and the arrear pensionary benefits thereon till the date of death of the husband of petitioner and after the death of the husband of the petitioner to calculate the family pension in favour of the wife”, the order stated.

“This Court observes the petitioner is entitled to interest on the entire arrear at least of 5% from the date of entitlement of husband till the judgment of High Court, then the interest of 6% from the date of the judgment of Supreme Court, then the interest of 6% from the date of the judgment of High Court till the disposal of the cases and interest of 10% from 22.8.2018 till the date of release of the arrear amount at least within a period of one month from the date of communication of the order. For unnecessary harassment to the petitioner to rush to this Court in the matter of release of admitted entitlements of the petitioner be also paid a sum of Rs.10,000 as litigation expenses,” the HC order further read.

“The petitioner’s wife is also 83 years old in the meantime. She has lost her husband and there should not be any further delay in the release of entitlements to see the 83 years old lady spend her last part of life with peace”, the court observed.