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Odisha teacher wins pension case 11 yrs after death. Widow says can die in peace
The Odisha high court told the state government that all persons responsible for the delay in payment of pension to the primary school teacher at enhanced rates should be brought to book to ensure that there was no repetition of this conduct in future.
BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha high court has ordered the state government to quickly pay the money owed to an 83-year-old widow who continued to fight her husband’s legal battles for the pension he believed he was entitled to. She won the case last week.
Minalata Mohanty said her husband, a retired primary school teacher, would have been very happy had he been alive. They had fought long, and hard.
“The kind of hardships that we went through all these years looking for justice is unimaginable. But I am happy. I can die in peace,” she said after the high court ruling delivered on July 23. The verdict was uploaded on Wednesday.
Justice Biswanath Rath ordered the state to pay the admissible entitlements of the school teacher with penal interest.
“She has lost her husband and there should not be any further delay in the release of entitlements through the (earlier) judgment (in OJC No 1345 of 1999) at least to see the 83-year-old lady spend her last part of life with peace,” justice Rath said, describing the state government retaining the teacher’s entitlements three years after losing its appeal in the Supreme Court a crime.
Her husband, Prafulla Chandra Mohanty, spent his years after retirement in 1986 struggling to get a higher scale that he was entitled to before his superannuation. Since the pension is calculated on the basis of an employee’s last drawn salary, Mohanty was determined to get his dues. After he retired, he filed the requests and reminders for years. In 1999, Mohanty finally moved the Odisha high court.
The teacher from Cuttack’s Salipur area won the high court case in 2004 but the state government went in appeal.
Mohanty died in 2010 before the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in 2018. But his wife did not still get the benefits.
Justice Rath took a dim view of the conduct of state government officials in this case that resulted in the delay.
“There is also a requirement for bringing all persons responsible for such delay to be brought to book to check no repetition of this conduct in future,” the court said. The court also told the state to pay a 5% interest on the remainder of his retirement dues from July 1986 to November 2004, 6% interest from November 2004 to August 2018 and 10% interest from August 2018 when the Supreme Court rejected the state’s special leave petition.
