1 / 7 2025:CGHC:7472 NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR WPS No. 6536 of 2024 Paikoo Ram (Retd. Sub Inspector) S/o Late Shri Modo Ram, Aged About 62 Years R/o Village, Post, Tahsil And P.S.- Phasabahar, District-Jashpur (C.G.) ... Petitioner versus 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through Its Secretary, Department Of Home/police Mahanadi Bhawan, Mantralaya, Police Station And Post- Rakhi, Atal Nagar, Nawa Raipur, District-Raipur (CG.) 2 - Director General Of Police (DGP), Police Head Quarter (PHQ), Sector-19, P.S.-And Post-Rakhi, Atal Nagar, Nawa Raipur, District-Raipur (C.G.) 3 - Accountant General (Lekha And Hawdari), Office Of Accountant General (Lekha And Haqdari), Zero Point, Balodabazar Road, Raipur, District-Raipur (C.G.) 4 - Divisional Joint Director, O/o Divisional Joint Director, Treasury- Accounts And Pension, Ghadi Chowk, Raipur Division, District-Raipur (C.G.) Digitally signed by PRAVEEN KUMAR SINHA Date: 2025.02.13 16:12:21 +0530 2 / 7 5 - Senior Superintendent Of Police, Office Of Senior Superintendent Of Police, Raipur, District-Raipur (C.G.) 6 - Superintendent Of Police (SP), Office Of Superintendent Of Police, Durg, District-Durg (C.G.) ... Respondent(s) For Petitioner : Mr. Abhishek Pandey with Ms. Swati Rani Saraf, Advocates For State : Mr. Akhilesh Kumar, Govt. Advocate For Respondent No.3 : Mr. Ashwani Shukla, Advocate S.B.: Hon'ble Shri Amitendra Kishore Prasad, Judge Order on Board 12/02/2025 1. Petitioner has filed this petition seeking following relief (s) :- “10.1 That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to direct the respondent authorities to produce all the relevant records relating to case of the petitioner before this Hon'ble Court for its kind perusal. (ii) That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to set-aside/quashed the impugned order of Amendment of Pay Fixation and recovery of excess payment dated 24.09.2024 issued by Respondent No. 5, Senior SP, Raipur (Annexure P/1). (iii) That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to set-aside/quashed the impugned recovery order of petitioner for an amount of Rs. 6,93,615/- issued by Respondent No. 6 SP, Durg (Annexure P/2). (iv) That, the Hon'ble High Court may kindly be pleased to direct the Respondent authorities to 3 / 7 refund the whole deducted amount to the petitioner i.e. Rs. 6,93,615/- along with the interest of 15% per annum which has been deducted due to the above mentioned impugned recovery order issued by Respondent No. 5 & 6. (v) That, this Hon'ble High Court may kindly be pleased to direct the Respondent Authority to release the whole Retiral dues ie. monthly pension from dated 01.08.2024, General Provident Fund (GPF), GIS, Amount of Leave Encashment, Gratuity, Family Benefit Fund (FBF), Third Time Scale Pay, Arrears of 7th Pay Scale & others. (vi) That this Hon'ble Court may further be pleased to direct respondents to give suitable compensation to the petitioner for the mental trauma and agony, harassment and hardships suffered by him as also cost of the litigation.” 2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner was working on the post of Sub Inspector and got retired on 31.07.2024 on attaining the age of superannuation. He further submits that, while he was in service, from time to time as per the guidelines of the State Government the benefit of pay scale was extended by the respondent authorities in favour of the petitioner. However, after retirement of the petitioner, the respondents authority passed an order for recovery of excess payment amounting to Rs.6,93,615/-. He contended that the petitioner is holding Class-III post and according to the decision in case of State of Punjab and others v. Rafiq Masih(White Washer) and others, reported in (2015) 4 SCC 334 recovery of the payment made mistakenly to Class-III employees is not permissible. He also contended that the similar view has been taken by Hon’ble Supreme Court in 4 / 7 case of High Court of Punjab and Haryana and others v. Jagdev Singh reported in (2016) 14 SCC 267. He also places reliance upon the decision rendered by the Division Bench of this Court in case of State of Chhattisgarh v. Labha Ram Dhruv in Writ Appeal No.264 of 2020 and also in case of State of Chhattisgarh and others v. Roshan Lal Baghel in Writ Appeal No.265 of 2020. He submits that recovery made by respondents from the petitioner is erroneous and not permissible. Order Annexure P/1 and Annexure-P/2 so far as it relates to the petitioner may be set aside and direction be issued to respondent authority to return back the amount recovered from the petitioner. 3. Counsel for the State submits that due to wrong fixation of salary petitioner has got the excess payment, therefore, the recovery order passed by the authority is proper and the excess amount which has been paid to the petitioner has to be recovered. 4. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and also perused the documents annexed with this writ petition. 5. Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Rafiq Masih (supra) held as under:- “18. 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, summarise 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). 5 / 7 (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. Hon'ble Division Bench of this Court in case of Labha Ram (Supra) observed as under: "9. In the case at hand, the Revision of Pay Rules, 2009 and 2017 do not make any enabling provision reserving option for the employer to seek refund of the amount paid in excess, by making the employee to furnish an undertaking. Even if we conclude, for the sake of arguments, that even in the absence of enabling provision under the Rules, undertaking given by the employee would operate, the fact remains that against the classes of employees against whom recovery would be impermissible in law, as held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of 6 / 7 Rafiq Masih (Supra), recovery from the employees belonging to Class-III and Class-IV service (or Group 'C' and Group 'D' service) would still be impermissible in law. Meaning thereby that even when undertaking is submitted by the employee, but he otherwise belongs to Class-III and Class-IV service, and the amount has been paid more than 5 years back, the law declared by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of Rafiq Masih (Supra) would still hold the field in favour of such employees, because the judgment in the matter of Rafiq Masih (Supra) has not been overruled, but only clarified, by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in its later judgment in the matter of Jagdev Singh, Supra. x x x 11.In view of the above and on finding that in the cases at hand, the recovery of the excess payment has been made more than 12 years ago; the writ petitioners belong to Class-III cadre in the services of the State Government, and small amount has been paid to them in a long span of time, which has now accumulated and the recovery of substantial amount is to be made against them, we are inclined to hold that the Writ Appeals have no substance. They deserve to be and are hereby dismissed." 7. In light of the above authoritative judgments, facts of the present case are to be examined. The alleged excess payment was not made by any misrepresentation or fraud on the part of the petitioner. In the considered opinion of this Court, the case of the petitioner is squarely covered by the decision in the case of Rafiq Masih (supra). Therefore, 7 / 7 the impugned orders (Annexure P/1 and Annexure P/2) issued by the respondent authorities for recovery of the excess payment are set aside and the amount which has been recovered, if any, as excess payment, shall be refunded to the petitioner within a period of 60 days from the date of receipt of copy of this order, failing which, it will carry interest @6% from the date of filing of this Writ Petition. 8. Respondents are further directed to release the retiral dues of the petitioner within a period of 4 weeks from the date of receipt of copy of this order. 9. Accordingly this petition is allowed with the aforesaid observations and directions Certified Copy as per rules. Sd/-Sd/- (Amitendra Kishore Prasad ) Judge Praveen