15th Sept., 2026 Item no.D/L 05 Court No. 24 Pradip, A.R.(Ct.) In the High Court at Calcutta Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side Case No. WPA 27632 of 2022 In the matter of: Shayamasri Mukherjee …. Petitioner VS. The State of West Bengal & Ors. ….Respondents For the Petitioner: Ms. Debjani Sengupta Ms. Sahina Haque Mr. Abhijit Chatterjee ….Advocates For the State: Mr. Mrinmoy Chatterjee ….Advocate 1. Affidavit of service filed in Court today is taken on record. 2. The petitioner is serving as an Assistant Teacher of a school. Her allegation is that the House Rent Allowance payable to her on the ground of distance is pending for a considerable period of time. 3. Prayer of the petitioner for grant of full House Rent Allowance was forwarded by the District Inspector of Schools, Secondary Education, Birbhum to the Commissioner of School Education vide Memo No. 1927/1(2)/G dated 2nd August, 2019 but the same is pending consideration till date. 4. The entire statement of the dues of the petitioner is annexed at page- 50 of the writ petition. The request made by the petitioner before the Joint Secretary, School Education Department for release of full House Rent Allowance is annexed at page-49 of the writ petition. 5. Learned advocate for the petitioner relies on the Memorandum No. 955-SE(LAW)/SL/5S-1221/09 dated 27th July, 2011 which mentions Page 2 that if the distance between two working spouses in the State Government is less than 150 Kms but not less than 50 Kms and the said distance is not commutable daily by availing general transport, full HRA as per rule with the approval of the department may be admissible to both working spouses if they live separately. 6. Specific case made out by the petitioner is that as the distance between the place of work of the petitioner and her husband is more than 150 Kms, the spouse of the petitioner received full HRA but the HRA of the petitioner was completely stopped. The petitioner and her spouse had to live separately because of the long distance between their places of work. 7. The petitioner prays for releasing her arrear HRA in full along with interest on account of delayed payment of HRA. 8. Upon hearing the submissions made on behalf of the petitioner and on perusal of the documents annexed to the writ petition, it appears that the authority found that the spouse of the petitioner resided far away from the petitioner for which he was paid full HRA. 9. Paying full HRA to the spouse indicates that the petitioner resided separately for performing her official duties as she worked in a school at Bolpur whereas the husband of the petitioner worked at Jalpaiguri. The two places are not commutable on regular basis by using regular means of transport. 10. It appears that the petitioner has made out a strong case for grant of full HRA in her favour in accordance with the memorandum of the State mentioned hereinabove. 11. In view of the above, the instant writ petition is disposed of by directing the respondent no. 4 being the District Inspector of School, Secondary Education, Birbhum to take a decision on the petitioner’s Page 3 prayer for releasing full HRA in her favour upon perusal of all documents relied upon by her. 12. An opportunity of hearing shall be granted to the petitioner for production of all documents in support of the statement that her husband resided and worked at a place which was not commutable on regular basis from the place of work of the petitioner. 13. If the prayer of the petitioner is accepted by the authority, then steps shall be taken for releasing full HRA to her along with interest at the rate of six percent per annum to be calculated on the due amount from the due date till the date of actual payment. 14. Steps shall be taken in the matter at the earliest but positively within a period of twelve weeks from the date of communication of this order. 15. Learned advocate for the petitioner is directed to forward all the necessary documents to the aforesaid respondent in support of her claim at the time of communicating the order of this Court. 16. The writ petition stands disposed of. 17. Parties to act on the basis of the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. 18. Certified server copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties upon compliance of all requisite formalities. (Amrita Sinha, J.)