New Delhi, Oct. 8 -- A peon's 11-year wait for pension has shaken up Uttar Pradesh's bureaucracy and judiciary, with the Supreme Court directing the state's chief secretary to put in place a mechanism to ensure that pension papers are not delayed "even by a day". A bench of justices KV Viswanathan and Arun Palli, which also asked the Allahabad High Court to consider fast-tracking all pension cases, issued the directions after being confronted with the case of Jagdish Prasad Tripathi, who retired as a peon in 2016 after 32 years of unblemished service but was left without his legitimate retiral dues for nearly 11 years. What happened to Tripathi, the bench said, was an "unfortunate calamity" that should not befall any other employee. It directed the chief secretary to submit by December 31 a report explaining why his pension papers were not cleared immediately after retirement, identifying the officials responsible for the delay, detailing proposed action against them, and explaining how the state proposed to compensate him for the "serious violation" of his rights and "grave injustice". "We are not just taken aback but we are totally aghast that this can happen to an employee who was given dedicated service 32 years," said the bench in its order released on Tuesday. Tripathi was appointed as a peon at Jan Sevak Uchchattar Madhyamik Vidyalaya in Sultanpur in 1984 and retired on July 31, 2016. Despite repeatedly seeking release of his pension, he was forced to approach the Allahabad high court in August 2018. But the case remained pending for years. An order in April 2024 directed the high court registry to trace a counter-affidavit filed by the state and place it on record. The matter was not listed thereafter. Even an application filed by Tripathi in October 2025 seeking early disposal was disposed of in April 2026 without fixing a date for hearing. It was only after Tripathi approached the Supreme Court that the extent of the delay came to light. Reading through the records, the bench said it was "shocked" to find that for nearly a decade after his superannuation he had not been paid his retiral dues. . The state's compliance affidavit revealed a striking contradiction. It initially claimed that Tripathi had remained absent from July 2009 to November 2010, resulting in only provisional pension being approved. But the very next paragraph acknowledged that he had actually been paid salary for that period. The department subsequently cancelled the order and recommended final pension. By then, however, years had been lost. Gratuity of Rs.4.49 lakh was paid only in 2025, while Rs.7.16 lakh GPF was disbursed in February 2025. After the Supreme Court's intervention, Tripathi received Rs.29.06 lakh pension arrears and other benefits on September 14. He will now receive a regular monthly pension plus dearness allowance....