14/07 2026 AD/06/18 266312 NANDY (DO) In the High Court at Calcutta Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side WPA/13549/2026 PRADIP DEBNATH VS THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL & ORS. Mr. Sudipta Dasgupta, Advocate Mr. Saikat Sutradhar, Advocate ……for the Petitioner Ms. Aparna Banerjee, Advocate Mr. Subit Majumdar, Advocate ……for the State 1. Affidavit of service, as filed, be kept with the record. 2. The petitioner is aggrieved that his shortfall in service of about 4 months and 27 days has not been considered favourably by the concerned authorities and has been rejected by an order of December 12, 2025. It is this order which has been assailed in this writ-petition. 3. The petitioner had participated in and been successful in obtaining the post of a Lower Division Clerk (LDC) in the Department of Agriculture, Government of West Bengal. Having been successful, sometime in July 2014, the petitioner found that his classification, which was under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, had been inadvertently shown by the authorities under the Scheduled Caste (SC) category. 4. The petitioner had immediately approached the West Bengal State Administrative Tribunal (hereinafter the Tribunal) in 2014 for change of category of the petitioner. The matter was finally heard and disposed of by an order dated April 19, 2017 directing the authorities, inter alia, to amend the category of the petitioner, which had occurred due to an inadvertence on the part of the concerned P a g e | 2 authorities. Pursuant thereto, the petitioner was inducted into service upon consideration by an order dated June 5, 2017. Interestingly, the date of the petitioner's appointment was kept unspecified. 5. The petitioner is now apprehensive, with good reason, that he will not be granted pension as he is to retire on January 11, 2027, thereby not completing the mandatory 10 years of service to be eligible for grant of pension. There will be a shortfall of 4 months and 27 days. 6. The petitioner had brought to the notice of the authorities this anomalous situation sometime in 2024, and the same was rejected by the authorities on December 12, 2025; on the ground that the deficiency of qualifying service of the petitioner, now an Upper Division Clerk (UDC), does not fall within the parameters set forth in Rule 36 of the West Bengal Services (Death-Cum-Retirement Benefit) Rules, 1971 (hereinafter the said Rules). 7. The ostensible reason for such order was that the petitioner's case was not one of invalid or compensation pension. 8. The domain of Rule 36 of the said Rules is wider than these two issues pointed out in the order assailed before this Court. The authorities have been given the power to relax and/or impose any condition in the said Rules, and the same has also been mandated by this Hon'ble Court in several decisions, including FMA/687/2022 (Basudeb Purkait Vs. The State of West Bengal & Ors.) and WPST/112/2019 (Ashim Kumar Chakraborty Vs. The State of West Bengal & Ors.). 9. In both these afore-stated decisions, the condonation /relaxation can be done on certain terms and conditions. Since the shortfall is below the mandated P a g e | 3 period of six months (4 months and 27 days), there is no reason as to why the said shortfall cannot be condoned. 10. Further, the petitioner was already a successful candidate in 2014 and had himself approached the Tribunal to rectify the error caused by the authorities. This error on behalf of the authorities cannot in any manner be ascribed to any default of the petitioner. 11. Even upon inducting the petitioner into service, pursuant to an order of the Tribunal of April 19, 2017, the authorities chose not to specify his date of appointment. Ideally, the appointment should relate back to at least 2014, since the petitioner was a duly empanelled candidate and, in normal circumstances, had there been no default on the part of the authorities, would be entitled to service since 2014 and would have thereby obtained the minimum mandated period of qualifying service of 10 years. 12. The petitioner cannot be made to suffer for an error which has occurred on the part of the authorities. 13. The order of December 12, 2025 is hereby set aside. 14. The respondent no. 4 is directed to consider the petitioner's case afresh, keeping in mind that the service tenure of the petitioner had been shortened completely due to the default of the authorities. The decision will also be strictly in line with the afore- stated decisions of this Hon'ble Court in Basudeb Purkait and in Ashim Kumar Chakraborty (supra). 15. Since the authorities have the power to condone the shortfall of 4 months and 27 days, the respondent no. 4 will condone the same and will complete the entire exercise by August 10, 2026. 16. With the afore-stated directions, the writ-petition is disposed of. No order as to costs. P a g e | 4 17. All the parties are to act on the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Hon’ble Court. (Reetobroto Kumar Mitra, J.)