The near-field ground motions containing strong velocity pulses are of interest for seismologists and engineers as it may induce large displacement in structures compared to far-field ground motions and increase the risk of earthquake induced collapse. Various researchers have attempted to quantify the damages caused by pulse like ground motions for concrete structures like buildings, bridges, and geotechnical structures like foundations and embankments. In this work, an attempt has been made to investigate the effect of pulse on dynamic behaviour of the retaining wall by developing a 2D finite element model of cantilever retaining wall and performing analyses for both pulse-like and far-field ground motions. For this purpose, a dataset containing 70 pulse like ground motion and 10 far-field ground motion has been developed. The result obtained from the analyses in terms of wall displacements has been studied to understand the effect of pulse like ground motion on retaining walls. Further, the effect of numbers of pulse cycles in pulse like ground motions is also analysed in this work.