Labh Singh vs State of Punjab and Others

Ajay Tewari, J.—This petition has been filed by the petitioner for refixation of his pension and refund of the amount recovered on account of withdrawing of the benefit of the Proficiency step up. The petitioner was employed as Junior Assistant in the office of the Executive Engineer, Construction Division, SYL Project (Punjabi) Kharar and retired on 31.03.2009 on attaining the age of superannuation. In pursuance to objections raised by the Internal Audit Wing of Punjab Finance Department, 16th year proficiency step was withdrawn and the pay of the petitioner was re-fixed w.e.f. 01.01.1996. Thereafter, the payment of his retiral benefit was made after deducting the amount of Rs. 68,650/-.

At the very outset, the learned counsel for the petitioner states that he would not challenge the re-fixation of pension but restrict his prayer to the extent that recovery effected from the retiral benefits should be refunded to the petitioner on the ground that no fraud or misrepresentation was committed on the part of the petitioner.

Reply has been filed by respondents No. 1 to 4. The ground taken by the said respondents for recovering the amount from the petitioner is that it was public money and cannot be paid to the petitioner without his due and legal entitlement towards the same. 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 retiral 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 hand 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 recovered amount from the retiral benefits of the petitioner is directed to be released to him within a period of two months from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this order, failing which, the petitioner would be entitled to recover the same with interest at the rate of 8% p.a. from the date/s of recovery till the date of payment. Since the main case has been decided, the pending civil miscellaneous application, if any, also stands disposed of.