Khazan Singh vs The State of Punjab and Another

Ajay Tewari, J.—By way of this writ petition, the petitioner has challenged the action of the respondents in directing recovery of excess payment from his pensionary benefit on account of withdrawal of the benefit of bunching increment granted to him. The petitioner was appointed as Project Engineer on work charge basis w.e.f. 20.1.1968. Thereafter, he was regularly appointed as Sub Divisional Engineer in PWD (B&R) Department. He was promoted to the post of Executive Engineer on 8.9.1972. The petitioner was granted the benefit of bunching increment in the pay scale of Rs. 14300-18150 after putting in more than 14 years of regular service. He retired from the service on 31.5.2000. Vide the impugned order dated 7.9.2011 (Annexure P-1), the respondents have sought recovery of excess amount from his pensionary benefit on account of withdrawal of the said bunching increment.

At the very outset, counsel for the petitioner states that he would not challenge re-fixation of pension but restrict his prayer to the extent that recovery sought to be effected from his pensionary benefits should not be made.

The stand taken by the respondents is that pursuant to the decision of this Court in CWP No. 17993 of 2007, a Committee was constituted which found that the benefit of bunching increment was wrongly given. Reliance has been placed on para 16 of the judgment passed by the Hon''ble Supreme Court in Chandi Prasad Uniyal and Others Vs. State of Uttarakhand and Others, to canvass that excess payment made can always be recovered at any time since it is public money which belongs neither to the officers who have effected over payment nor that of the recipients.

Having heard both the learned counsel and going through the case law cited above, I am of the opinion that the amount of money which has been paid to the petitioner cannot be recovered in the light of observations made by the Hon''ble Supreme Court in Chandi Parsad Uniyal''s case (supra) which carves an exception relying upon the earlier judgments of the said Court that such benefits released to the employees during the service cannot be recovered from the retrial benefits. Paras 14 and 17 of the said judgment would be relevant and the same are reproduced herein below:--

We may point out that in Syed Abdul Qadir case such a direction was given keeping in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances of that case since the beneficiaries had either retired or were on the verge of retirement and so as to avoid any hardship to them.

We are, therefore, of the considered view that except few instances pointed out in Syed Abdul Qadir case (supra) and in Col. B.J. Akkara (retd.) case (supra), the excess payment made due to wrong/irregular pay fixation can always be recovered.

Resultantly, in view of the above, this petition is partly allowed. The respondents are directed not to make any recovery from the pension of he petitioner. No costs.