CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.18450 OF 2008 :{ 1 }: IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH DATE OF DECISION: DECEMBER 10 ,2010 Rattan Lal Gupta .....Petitioner VERSUS State of Haryana and another ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? PRESENT: Mr. S. K. Sud, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Harish Rathee, Sr.DAG, Haryana, for the State. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. (ORAL) The petitioner has filed this writ petition for quashing of order dated 23.7.2008 (Annexure P-6) and for issuance of a direction to grant interest to the petitioner on delayed payment of gratuity, leave encashment, arrears of pay/pension. In support, the petitioner has placed reliance on Full Bench decision of this Court in R.S.Randhawa Vs. State of Haryana, 1997(3) RSJ 319. The issue relates to revision of pay scale of `3000-4500 on completion of five years and the scale of `4100-5300 on CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.18450 OF 2008 :{ 2 }: completion of 12 years of service. These scales were granted to L.R.Khanna and V.D.Sharma, who were statedly juniors to the petitioner. Subsequently, the scale granted to L.R.Khanna was withdrawn, when he challenged the same by filing a writ petition. The writ petition was allowed, against which the respondent-State filed a L.P.A., which was also dismissed. Thereafter, the petitioner filed Civil Writ Petition No.2356 of 2004, which was disposed of with a direction to the respondents to decide the legal notice. While responding to the legal notice, it was disclosed that L.P.A had been filed against the judgment relied upon by the petitioner. Once the L.P.A was dismissed, the case of L.R.Khanna and others for grant of revised pay scale was allowed. When nothing was done, the petitioner filed a contempt petition and ultimately the revised scales were also allowed to the petitioner in the year 2007 as well. The petitioner has, therefore, filed the writ petition to claim interest for delayed payment on difference of pensionary benefits on account of revised pay scale. No doubt, the petitioner can maintain a writ petition for grant of interest alone in view of the law laid down in R.S.Randhawa's case (supra) but yet interest would be payable in case it is noticed that there is some inordinate or culpable delay on the part of the respondents in releasing CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.18450 OF 2008 :{ 3 }: any amount, which is otherwise due without any dispute. Since there was a serious dispute in regard to entitlement of particular scales and these were allowed after hot contest and the issue was awaiting to be settled by the Court, it can not be said that there was any culpable negligence on the part of the respondents for releasing the dues. I am, thus, of the view that no interest is payable to the petitioner in this case. Dismissed. December 10,2010 (RANJIT SINGH ) khurmi JUDGE