JUDGMENT M, Srinivasan, C. J.-—The petitioner is a freedom fighter and he applied for pension under the Freedom Fighters Pension Scheme. As per records available before us, he must have applied some time before September 1993, though the exact date of application is not available. The Government granted pension to him by letter No. NZ-1I-117/B/148/81-FF-H. P. dated 20-1-198: and under PPO No. 2033/FF/Centre. Even particulars of the said letter were not mentioned in the writ petition but they were furnished by the learned Counsel for the petitioner in his letter dated 7-5-1996 under reference No. 234/96 addressed to the Senior Central Government Standing Counsel of this Court. That was done in pursuance of this Courts order dated 7-5-1996, whereby the petitioner was directed to furnish a copy of the sanction letter to the learned Senior Central Government Standing Counsel within one week there from. No copy of the sanction letter ha» been produced. It is stated by the learned Counsel that the said copy is not available with the petitioner. But it must be pointed out that in paragraph 6 of the petition a reference was made to the Government order b> which the pension was granted to the petitioner from 1-8-1980. The petitioner ought to have annexed a copy alongwith the writ petition but he had not done so ; nor he has produced the same inspite of the directions given b/ this Court. Whatever that may be, the question which arises now is whether the petitioner is entitled to get the pension from the date of the application or from 1-8-1980 as decided by the Government Though the decision of the Government was communicated to the petitioner vide letter dated 20-1-1982, the petitioner has not approached this Court till 23-11-1995 when he filed this writ petition. In the petition, he prayed for grant of arrears from................. with 12 per cent interest from...............As the petitioner is not in a position to give the correct date of the application he has chosen to leave the date blank but the learned Counsel argued that arrears shows at least be granted to the petitioner from September 1993 as Annexure PB shows that it was a reply sent by the Deputy Commissioner, Bilaspur to the petitioner which refers the application having been made by the petitioner earlier. 2. The petitioners counsel places reliance on Note (i) of Freedom Fighters Pension Scheme, 1972. 2. The petitioners counsel places reliance on Note (i) of Freedom Fighters Pension Scheme, 1972. The said note reads as follows i— "Note (i): The Pension Scheme commenced from 15th August, 1972, applications received on or before 14ih August, 1973 will be sanctioned pension from August 15, 1972 Applications received thereafter will be considered for pension only from the date of receipt." 3, The Pension Scheme was amended by Swatantrata Sainani Sam-man Pension Scheme, 1980 by which the Scheme has been liberalised One of the provisions introduced by the amendment was that with respect to jail suffering/warrant of arrest etc , if the records were not available with the official agencies because of one or the other reasons, the applicants could submit a non-availability of records certificate. Alongwith the not availability certificate of records, they were required to submit secondary evidence in the form of co-prisoner certificates from two persons who had proven jail sufferings of one year each, if the claimed suffering happened to be in jail. In case of underground sufferings, the applicants were required to submit a Personal knowledge certificate from a prominent freedom fighter who had an established jail suffering of two years. The case of the petitioner was rightly considered and the certificates produced by him were accepted and on that basis the Government sanctioned pension to the petitioner w. e. f. 1-8-1980. 4. When the petitioner got the sanction letter/order, he should have challenged the same on the footing that he was entitled to get the pension from the date of the application in view of Note (i) of the Scheme. But he did not do so for more than 13 years. The petitioner claimed to have sent several letters to the concerned authorities repeatedly claiming pension from the date of his application Merely sending such representations will not enable the petitioner to get any relief He further contends that this writ petition should be considered irrespective of the long and inordinate delay on the part of the petitioners 5. Reliance is placed on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Mukund Lal Bhandari and others v Union of India and others, AIR 1993 SC 2127. Reliance is placed on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Mukund Lal Bhandari and others v Union of India and others, AIR 1993 SC 2127. The question before the Court was whether as per provision in Freedom Fighters Scheme, 1972, which was liberalised in 1980, pension should be granted from the date of application, The Court held that it should be granted from the date of the application and gave certain directions to the respondents. The Court directed the respondents to accept the applications of the petitioners irrespective of the date on which they were made and that the applications received thereafter should also be entertained without raising the plea that they were beyond the prescribed date While holding so, the Court observed that :— "As regards the contention that the petitioners had filed their applications after the date prescribed in that behalf, we are afraid that this Government stand is not; justifiable. It is common knowledge that those who participated in the freedom struggle either at the national level or in the erstwhile Nizam State, are scattered all over the country and most of them may even be inhabiting the remotest parts of the rural areas What is more, almost all of them must have now gorwn pretty old, if they are alive, Where the freedom fighters are not alive and their widows and the unmarried daughters have to prefer claims, the position may still be worse with regard to their knowledge of the prescribed date What is more, if the Scheme has been introduced with the genuine desire to assist and honour those who had given the best part of their life for the country, it ill-behoves the Government to raise pleas of limitation against such claims. In fact, the Government, if it is possible for them to do of should find out the freedom fighters or their dependents and approach them with the pension instead of requiring them to make applications for the same, That would be the true spirit of working out such Schemes The Scheme has rightly been renamed in 1985 as the Swatantra Sainik Samman Pension Scheme to accord with its object. We, therefore, cannot countenance the plea of the Government that the claimants would only be entitled to the Scheme if they made applications before a particular date notwithstanding that in fact they had suffered the imprisonment and made the sacrifices and were thus otherwise qualified to receive the benefit We are, therefore, of the view that whatever the date on which the claimants make the applications, the benefit should be made available to them. The date prescribed in any past to future notice inviting the claims, should be regarded more as a matter of administrative convenience than as a rigid time limit." 6. Reliance is placed on the above passage and it is submitted that the benefit of liberalisation of Scheme should be given to the petitioner also as the Supreme Court has pointed out that the object of the Scheme is to enable the Government to make search, find out freedom fighters and to give them pension We are unable to find any passage in the judgment of the Supreme Court laying down that in the cases where orders have already been passed by the Government to grant pension with effect from a particular date, they should be re opened pursuant to the judgment and such persons should also be given the benefit from the dates of applications. 7. The judgment does not, in any way, indicate that all cases which have been closed should be re-opened by the Government and benefit should be given to the persons concerned. In such circumstances, we accept the plea of the respondents that if such benefit is given by the Government as-per judgment of the Supreme Court then it will necessitate re-opening of several thousands of cases and reconsidering the same with regard to payment of pension. It is, however, pointed out that after taking into account all the circumstance the Government has decided to give prospective effect to the judgment of the Supreme Court. Reference is also made to the reply to unstarred Question No. 3401 of the Lok Sabha, in which it was pointed out that the pension Scheme should be implemented as per judgment of the Supreme Court and will be given prospective effect and not retrospective effect, 8. The learned Counsel for the petitioner contends that Article 14 of the Constitution would be violated if the relief prayed for by the petitioner is not granted to him. The learned Counsel for the petitioner contends that Article 14 of the Constitution would be violated if the relief prayed for by the petitioner is not granted to him. It is submitted that the persons who have applied much later would get the benefit and the people who have not got orders earlier but had applied would get pension with effect from the date of the application That argument is not available to the petitioner, as he should have approached the Court within a reasonable time. 9. There is no explanation put forward before us for not approaching the Court for more than 13 years. We do not find any justification to accept this writ petition. Hence, this writ petition is dismissed. Petition dismissed.