SUSANTA CHATTERJI, J. ( 1 ) THE present writ petition has been filed praying, inter alia, for" an appropriate writ commanding the respondents to issue refund vouchers for the assessment years 1964-65, 1965-66, 1966-67, 1967-68, 1970-71, 1971-72, 1973-74, 1974-75 and 1976-77 and interest on the said amount of refund and other consequential reliefs on the ground that the respondents have a statutory obligation and the duty to forthwith refund the amount due to the petitioner and to pay the interest and issue necessary refund vouchers in terms of Section 244 of the Income-tax Act, particularly when the respondents themselves have already passed the order under Section 244 of the Act allowing interest on the amount due to the petitioner. The respondents are allegedly acting in contravention of the statutory provisions and such witholding of interest is unwarranted and without jurisdiction. ( 2 ) DR. Debi Pal, appearing for the writ-petitioner, has mainly submitted that, for the assessment years in this case as indicated above, the assessment orders were under and in accordance with the law. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner passed the orders for the relevant assessment years and the Appellate Tribunal, on appeals having been preferred by the Department, confirmed the orders of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner. The Tribunal allegedly passed the orders for the first two years in April, 1972, for the third and fourth years in May, 1974, and for the fifth year in January, 1976. ( 3 ) IT is placed on record that the Income-tax Officer finally calculated the amount refundable as a result of the appellate orders. ( 4 ) IT is brought to the notice of this court that, under Section 240 of the Income-tax Act, an assessee is entitled to refund of any amount which has become due to the assessee as a result of any order passed in appeal or otherwise and it is obligatory upon the Income-tax Officer to refund the amount to the assessee without having any claim in that behalf. Under Section 244 (1) of the Act, where a refund is due to the assessee in pursuance of an order referred to in Section 240 of the Act and the Income-tax Officer has not granted the refund within the period of three months from the end of the month in which such order is passed, the Central Government is under a statutory obligation to pay to the assessee simple interest at 12% per annum on the amount of refund due from the date immediately following the expiry of the period. ( 5 ) DR. Pal further submits that, in the present case, no affidavit-in-opposition has been filed controverting the allegations of the petitioner. It is not in dispute that the petitioner is entitled to the claim as made. Unnecessarily the matter is delayed by asking queries which are not relevant for the purpose. ( 6 ) MR. Moitra, learned lawyer appearing for the contesting respondents, has, however, submitted that the petitioner may be permitted to make a representation and the Deputy Commissioner of Income-tax (Special Range) will consider the same in the proper perspective. ( 7 ) HAVING heard learned lawyers of both sides and considering the materials on record in depth, this court finds that the petitioner is entitled to get the refund vouchers in terms of the orders of the income-tax authorities being confirmed up to the Appellate Tribunal. There is no bar and/or impediment to issue the refund vouchers as a consequential measure. ( 8 ) CONSIDERING all the aspects of the matter, the writ petition is allowed. The respondents concerned are directed to take effective steps to issue the refund vouchers along with interest as admissible in law within a period of six months from date. There will be no order as to costs.