Abhoy Charan Mukhopadhyay Vs State of West Bengal & Ors. — Calcutta HC (2024) — LawSathi Research

Abhoy Charan Mukhopadhyay Vs State of West Bengal & Ors. — Calcutta HC (2024) — LawSathi Research

What the court decided

AI extract

Outcome

Refund of Rs.88327/- to the petitioner with interest at 6% per annum from the date of retirement (10th December, 2002) till the date of actual payment, payable within two months of communication of the order, the rate climbing to 8% per annum on default; the PPO issued to the petitioner shall not be altered or changed.

Issue for consideration

Whether the recovery of Rs.88327/- from the retired petitioner as overdrawn amount — after the last drawn pay in the PPO was corrected from Rs.6900/- to Rs.6300/- — was permissible, where the excess payment arose from wrong fixation of pay and the employee was not responsible for it. +1 more

Court's answer

Having regard to State of Punjab vs. Rafiq Masih ((2014) 8 SCC 883) and Thomas Daniel vs. State of Kerala (2022 SCC OnLine SC 536), the Court applied the principle that recovery of any amount overdrawn by an employee cannot be effected post-retirement where the employee was not responsible for the excess payment pursuant to any wrong fixation of pay.

Ratio / Principle

The Joint Director, Pension, Provident Fund and Group Insurance, Government of West Bengal misdirected himself in applying the order passed in MAT 98 of 2015 by a Division Bench of this Court; that decision has no manner of application to the facts of the case.

Key takeaways

The Court directed the Joint Director to refund Rs.88327/- to the writ petitioner with interest at 6% per annum from the date of retirement (10th December, 2002) till actual payment, within two months; on default the interest rate rises to 8% per annum; and the PPO issued to the petitioner shall not be altered or changed.ratio¶15

Detailed headnote1 paragraphs

Writ petition (WPA 8600 of 2017) by a retired employee aggrieved by the order dated 15th December, 2016 of the Joint Director, Pension, Provident Fund and Group Insurance, Government of West Bengal, whereby the last drawn pay recorded in the PPO was corrected from Rs.6900/- to Rs.6300/- and Rs.88327/- was recovered as overdrawn amount. Having regard to State of Punjab vs. Rafiq Masih, (2014) 8 SCC 883 and Thomas Daniel vs. State of Kerala, 2022 SCC OnLine SC 536, the Court applied the principle that recovery of overdrawn amounts cannot be effected post-retirement where the employee was not responsible for the excess payment pursuant to wrong fixation of pay. The Court held that the Joint Director misdirected himself in applying the order passed in MAT 98 of 2015 by a Division Bench of the Court, which decision had no manner of application to the facts. The Joint Director was directed to refund Rs.88327/- with interest at 6% per annum from the date of retirement (10th December, 2002) till actual payment within two months, the rate rising to 8% per annum on default; the PPO was not to be altered or changed. Writ petition disposed of. (RAJASEKHAR MANTHA, J.)

13.06.2024 Item No.32 RP Ct. No.13

WPA 8600 of 2017 Abhoy Charan Mukhopadhyay Vs. State of West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. Falguni Bandyopadhyay Ms. Riya Ballav

…..For Petitioner

Mr. Bhaskar Prasad Vasiya Mr. Nilay Barman Mondal

…..For DPSC, South Parganas

Mr. Pinaki Dhole Mr. Avishek Prasad

…..for State

Supplementary affidavit filed in Court today be kept on record.

The petitioner is aggrieved by the order dated 15^th December, 2016 passed by the Joint Director, Pension, Provident Fund and Group Insurance, Government of West Bengal. By the impugned order the incorrect last drawn pay of Rs.6900/- has been corrected in PPO to Rs.6300/- and a sum of Rs.88327/- has been recovered from the petitioner as overdrawn amount.

Having regard to the decision of the Supreme Court passed in the case of State of Punjab vs. Rafiq Masih reported in (2014) 8 SSC 883 and Thomas Daniel vs. State of Kerala reported in 2022 SCC Online SC 536 wherein it is held that recovery of any amount overdrawn by any employee cannot be effected post retirement if the employee was not responsible for any such excess payment pursuant to any wrong fixation of pay.

In that view of the matter, this Court is of the view that the Joint Director, Pension, Provident Fund and

2

Group Insurance, Government of West Bengal has misdirected himself in applying the order passed in MAT 98 of 2015 by a Division Bench of this Court. The said decision has no manner of application in the facts of the case.

This Court therefore directs the Joint Director, Pension, Provident Fund and Group Insurance, Government of West Bengal to refund the said sum of Rs.88327/- to the writ petitioner together with interest at the rate of 6% per annum on and from the date of retirement of the petitioner i.e. 10^th December, 2002 till the date of actual payment within a period of two months from the date of communication of a copy of this order along with a copy of the writ petition. In default of making of such refund within two months from date the rate of interest shall climb to 8% per annum. It is made clear that the PPO issued to the petitioner shall not be altered or changed.

In the result, the writ petition is disposed of.

All parties are directed to act on a server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court.

(RAJASEKHAR MANTHA, J.)