Court No. - 38
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 12557 of 2019 Petitioner :- Sarojini Devi Upadhyay Respondent :- Chairman State Bank Of India And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Amitabh Trivedi Counsel for Respondent :- A.S.G.I.,Satish Chaturvedi,Sumit Kumar
Hon'ble Ashwani Kumar Mishra,J.
Petitioner's husband was an Assistant Engineer in the Military Engineering Service, who died on 7.12.2003. Petitioner being wife was entitled to family pension. It appears that due to inadvertent error or omission on part of the Bank amount of regular pension was paid to the petitioner for fairly long. When the facts in that regard were brought to the notice of the higher authorities ultimately a decision was taken to adjust the excess amount which has been paid to the petitioner from the deposits held by her. Facts in that regard are not in issue. However, the communication of the Bank dated 27.5.2019 informing her to pay the balance amount and to withhold the deposits in the bank till then is subject matter of challenge in this petition. It appears that a previous communication of this kind was also sent by the Bank on 13.11.2017.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that petitioner was not responsible for the excess amount paid to her and that she is willing to repay the excess amount paid to her after adjusting the amount already deducted and no interest be charged for this period.
In view of the fair stand taken by the petitioner, it would be appropriate to permit the petitioner to give an undertaking before the Branch Manager of the concerned branch of State Bank of India for recovering the balance amount, which is due and payable to the Bank by petitioner on account of excess payment release to her, from her account/deposits lying in the bank, after adjusting the amount already recovered from her. In case such an undertaking is given, the Bank shall recover the excess amount paid to petitioner, after adjusting the amount already deducted, from her account/deposits lying in the Bank.
It is, however, clarified that since petitioner was not at fault, the Bank shall not recover any amount towards charges, costs and interest from the petitioner and the deduction/recovery would be confined only upto the excess amount credited to the petitioner's account.
With the aforesaid observations/directions, this writ petition stands disposed of.
Order Date :- 30.9.2019 Ashok Kr.