Similarly situated claimants are entitled to 9% interest on delayed payments despite approaching the court later.

The petitioners, rice-mill owners, had agreements with respondent No. 4 for transportation of paddy and rice.

Although transportation charges for 2013–14 and 2014–15 were payable under the agreements, payment was delayed.

Respondent No. 1 directed payment of the charges by order dated 30 April 2021 but did not award interest; the charges were paid on 21 November 2022, after a delay of more than seven years.

Eight of the 24 mill owners had earlier obtained an order awarding 9% interest in W.P. No. 13133 of 2023.

The present petitioners, who had not joined that petition, sought the same relief.

Respondent No. 4 opposed extending that relief, relying on the petitioners’ delay and its unsuccessful challenge to the earlier order.

1. Whether the petitioners were entitled to interest on the delayed transportation-charge payments on the same basis as the petitioners in W.P. No. 13133 of 2023.

2. Whether the petitioners’ later filing of the present petition justified denying them that relief.

In W.P. No. 13133 of 2023, the Court had considered Section 34 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the Interest Act, 1978, and awarded interest at 9% per annum for the period during which the mill owners were deprived of their legitimately due payments.

The Court treated that order, which had become final after respondent No. 4’s challenges were unsuccessful, as governing the materially similar claims before it.

The petitioners’ claims arose from the same order, concerned the same delayed transportation charges, and were on par with the claims allowed in W.P. No. 13133 of 2023.

The Court rejected the argument that the earlier order could not benefit the petitioners because respondent No. 4 had not opposed that petition or because the present petition was filed later.

The earlier order had become final, and the petitioners’ comparable claims warranted the same relief.

It directed the respondents to pay interest at 9% per annum on the amounts paid on 21 November 2022, calculated from the dates those amounts became due until 21 November 2022, within three months of receipt of a certified copy of the order.