S/L 33 22.09.2026 Court No.24 SD IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA CONSTITUTIONAL WRIT JURISDICTION WPA 13805 of 2026 Baishali Sinha Vs. The State of West Bengal & Ors. Mr. Bikram Banerjee Mr. Dwarikanath Mukherjee Mr. Pradip Kumar Ghosh Mr. Arindam Shit … for the Petitioner. Mr. Atreya Chakraborty … for the State. 1. Affidavit of service filed in Court today be kept with the records. 2. The petitioner is serving in a Government sponsored school. She received house rent allowance (HRA) for a considerable period of time. Thereafter the same was partially stopped and later completely stopped on the ground that her spouse is receiving HRA. 3. It has been submitted that the spouse of the petitioner works in a private organization and his HRA ought not to stand in the way of the respondent authorities from paying full HRA to the petitioner. 4. In support of the aforesaid submission, reliance has been placed on the judgment delivered by the Court on 16th March, 2021 in a batch of writ petitions first of which is WPA 1389 of 2018 (Mousumi Biswas & Anr. v. State of West Bengal & Ors.) wherein the Court held that notwithstanding the spouse engaged in private employment and enjoying HRA, full benefit of HRA ought to be allowed to the teacher. 2 5. The petitioner prays for a direction upon the District Inspector of Schools for releasing the arrear HRA and regularization of her HRA as laid down by the Court in the matter of Mousumi Biswas (supra). 6. Learned counsel representing the State respondents submits that the issue may be decided in line with the decision laid down by the Court in the matter of Mousumi Biswas (supra). 7. It appears from the submission made on behalf of the petitioner that her husband is serving in a private organization and, accordingly, the petitioner would be entitled to receive full HRA. 8. The instant writ petition stands disposed of by directing the District Inspector of Schools (Secondary Education), Kolkata to take a decision on the prayer of the petitioner for grant of arrear HRA and for regularizing her current HRA strictly in accordance with the law laid down in the matter of Mousumi Biswas (supra) at the earliest but positively within a period of twelve weeks from the date of communication of this order. 9. All arrear and current HRA in full shall be disbursed if the prayer of the petitioner is allowed. As the petitioner will receive the amount on account of HRA at a delayed point of time, accordingly, the arrear HRA shall be paid with simple interest @ 5% per annum from the date it fell due till the date of actual payment. 3 10. It will be open for the District Inspector of Schools (Secondary Education), Kolkata to provide an opportunity of hearing to the petitioner, if required, for production of documents in support of the submission that her husband works in a private organization. 11. The writ petition stands disposed of. 12. Parties to act on the basis of the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. 13. Certified server copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties upon compliance of all requisite formalities. (Amrita Sinha, J.)