Court No. - 43
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 5332 of 2019 Petitioner :- Asrar Ahmad Respondent :- Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam, Lucknow And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Pankaj Kushwaha,Suresh Chandra Kushwaha Counsel for Respondent :- Pranjal Mehrotra
Hon'ble Ashwani Kumar Mishra,J.
Following orders were passed in the matter on 9.4.2019:-
"Petitioner superannuated from the employment of respondent corporation on 31.5.2014. He is aggrieved by an order of the authority concerned dated 29.5.2017 whereby certain recovery is proposed to be made from his pension on the plea that service benefits were wrongly granted to him while he was in employment. Reliance is placed upon a judgment of the Apex Court in State of Punjab and others Vs. Rafiq Masih (White Washer) and others reported in (2015) 4 SCC 332 wherein it has been held that recovery from class III and Class IV employee would be impermissible in law after his retirement, on the plea that payments have been made mistakenly by the employer. Submission is that petitioner was also a class III employee and much after his retirement the recovery would be impermissible.
Sri Pranjal Mehrotra, learned counsel appearing for the respondent Corporation may obtain instructions, by the next date fixed. Put up as fresh on 15.4.2019."
Sri Pranjal Mehrotra, learned counsel appearing for the authorities of Jal Nigam has obtained instructions. It is stated that a Government Order has been issued by the State on 21.11.2015 which states that in case salary of a government servant has been fixed incorrectly then appropriate correction can always be made in the matter.
Though a word of caution is extended in the Government Order which has been produced before the Court, but there does not appear to be any stipulation in the Government Order which permits recovery to be made from a class III employee after his retirement. No provision is otherwise shown in the applicable service rules which enables the corporation to effect any recovery from the employee concerned. It is otherwise not the case of the respondents that any fraud or misrepresentation was made by the petitioner.
In that view of the matter it would not be open for the respondents to effect recovery from petitioner, particularly in view of the observations made by the Apex Court in State of Punjab and others Vs. Rafiq Masih (White Washer) and others reported in (2015) 4 SCC 332. It would, however, be appropriate to clarify that after affording an opportunity of hearing to petitioner it would be open for the respondents to correctly fix petitioner's pay scale etc. for the purposes of determining petitioner's pension in accordance with law. Any amount which has been recovered/deducted from the petitioner would be returned within a period of two months from the date of presentation of certified copy of this order.
With the aforesaid observations, this writ petition stands disposed of.
Order Date :- 26.4.2019 Ashok Kr.