the petitioner. Rather, the delay appears to have occurred on account of omission on the part of the respondents. The only relief now, which the petitioner claims is with regard to interest on delayed payment. As far as maintainability of a writ in the nature of mandamus for the grant of interest is concerned, by now it is pretty settled that same is legally maintainable. In this regard, we can have the reference of the pronouncement of the judgment in case A.S. Randhawa vs. State of Punjab & others, 1997(3) SCT 468 as well as Vijay L. Mehrotra vs. State of U.P., 2000(4) SCT 267 . In case Vijay L. Mehrotra (supra) , the Hon’ble Apex Court, has specifically observed that retiree is entitled to the grant of interest on the delayed payment of retiral dues. It was observed that in case of an employee retiring after having rendered service, it is expected that all the payment of the retiral benefits should be paid on the date of retirement or soon thereafter if for some unforeseen reasons or circumstances, the payments could not be made on the date of retirement. Otherwise also, considering a number of cases and the procedure to be adopted, it is settled that at the most the employer is obliged to release the pensionary benefits maximum within a period of three months from the date of retirement. But in the case in hand, even the benefits accrued on account of retirement have not been released to the petitioners within the aforesaid reasonable period of three months.
