Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:12963 Court No. - 6 Case :- WRIT - A No. - 18789 of 2024 Petitioner :- Nand Lal Respondent :- State Of Up And 6 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Bibhuti Narayan Singh Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C. Hon'ble Neeraj Tiwari,J. 1. Heard learned counsel for petitioner and learned Standing Counsel for State-respondents. 2. Present petition has been filed seeking following reliefs:- "(a) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned orders dated 04.09.2024 and 24.10.2024 passed by Soil Conservation Officer Gyanpur at Piparis Bhadohi, District Bhadohi." 3. Learned counsel for petitioner submitted that impugned orders dated 04.09.2024 & 24.10.2024 have been passed to recover Rs. 15,27,580/- from petitioner. Lastly, it is submitted that in light of judgement of Apex Court in the matter of State of Punjab and others Vs. Rafiq Masih: 2015 (4) SCC 334, no recovery can be made from Class-III & Class-IV employees when excess payment has been made due to wrong fixation of pay scale. Therefore, impugned order dated 26.11.2024 is bad and liable to be set aside. 4. Learned Standing Counsel for State-respondents could not dispute the aforesaid submissions. 5. I have considered the rival submissions advanced by the learned counsel for the parties and perused the records as well as impugned order. Apex Court in the case of Rafiq Masih (Supra) while dealing with such dispute, had framed following guidelines:- "12. It is not possible to postulate all situations of hardship, which would govern employees on the issue of recovery, where payments have mistakenly been made by the employer, in excess of their entitlement. Be that as it may, based on the decisions referred to herein above, we may, as a ready reference, summarize the following few situations, wherein recoveries by the employers, would be impermissible in law: i) Recovery from employees belonging to Class-III and Class-IV service (or Group 'C' and Group 'D' service). (ii) Recovery from retired employees, or employees who are due to retire within one year, of the order of recovery. (iii) Recovery from employees, when the excess payment has been made for a period in excess of five years, before the order of recovery is issued. (iv) Recovery in cases where an employee has wrongfully been required to discharge duties of a higher post, and has been paid accordingly, even though he should have rightfully been required to work against an inferior post. (v) In any other case, where the Court arrives at the conclusion, that recovery if made from the employee, would be iniquitous or harsh or arbitrary to such an extent, as would far outweigh the equitable balance of the employer's right to recover." 6. Undisputedly, case of petitioner is squarely covered with the judgement of Rafiq Masih (supra) as in the present case too, petitioner is not responsible for fixation of incorrect pay scale and consequently for excess payment. 7. Therefore, under such facts and circumstances of the case, the impugned orders dated 04.09.2024 & 24.10.2024 are hereby quashed. 8. With the aforesaid observations, writ petition is accordingly allowed. 9. However, respondents are at liberty to file a recall application if this order is obtained by the petitioner by concealing material fact. Order Date :- 24.1.2025 Sartaj Digitally signed by :- SARTAJ AHMAD High Court of Judicature at Allahabad