Chattisgarh High Court
Chhannu Lal Sahu vs State Of Chhattisgarh on 19 September, 2025
1
NAFR
HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR
WPS No. 8927 of 2023
Chhannu Lal Sahu S/o Late Shri Pitru Ram Sahu Aged About 63 Years R/o
Amapara, Balod, Ward No. 14, Police Station Balod, District Balod (C.G.)
... Petitioner(s)
Digitally
signed by
AMIT PATEL
versus
Date:
1 - State of Chhattisgarh Through The Secretary, Revenue And Disaster
2025.09.19
18:02:40
+0530
Management Department, Mantralaya Atal Nagar, New Raipur, District Raipur
(C.G.)
2 - The Collector, Balod, District Balod (C.G.)
3 - The Sub Divisional Officer (Revenue) Balod, District Balod (C.G.)
4- The Tahsildar Balod, District Balod (C.G.)
5 - The Joint Director Treasury, Accounts And Pension, Durg, District Durg (C.G.)
--- Respondent
For Petitioner : Ms. Pranoti Das, Advocate on behalf of Mr.
Goutam Khetrapal, Advocate
For Respondent/ State : Mr. Ajay Pandey, G.A.
Hon'ble Shri Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad
Order On Board
19.09.2025
1. By way of this petition, the Petitioner has prayed for following relief(s) :-
"10.1. That this Hon'ble Court may kindly be
pleased to set-aside/quash the impugned order
dated 17.10.2023 (Annexure P/1)
10.2. That this Hon'ble Court may kindly be
pleased to direct the respondent authorities to
forthwith release the pension and other unpaid
monetary benefits in favour of the petitioner,
with interest @ 12% per annum from the date
of entitlement to its actual payment.
10.3 That, any other relief/order which may
deem fit and just in the facts and
circumstances of the case including award of
the costs of the petition may be given.''
2. The facts of the case, as projected in the present writ petition, in brief
that the petitioner was working as Patwari under the Respondent No. 1
and upon completion of age of superannuation, he retired from
services on 30.06.2023. After the retirement, the petitioner has made
representation for release of pension and other pensionary monetary
benefits on 26.09.2023. However, all of sudden, without affording any
opportunity of hearing, without serving any notice, after retirement of
petitioner from services, vide impugned order dated 17.10.2023, the
respondent No. 4 has issued impugned recovery order, whereby the
petitioner has been directed to deposit the excess payment through
challan.
3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the impugned order of
recovery is per se illegal, bad-in-law, the petitioner is Class-III low paid
employee and he has already been retired, therefore the impugned
recovery order is against the law already settled by the Hon'ble
Supreme Court in the case of "State of Punjab & Others Vs. Rafiq
Masih (White Washer) & Others reported in 2015 (4) SCC 334",
hence the impugned recovery order deserves to be quashed.
4. On the other hand, the State counsel has not opposed the submissions
made by learned counsel for the petitioner.
5. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the
documents placed on record.
6. From perusal of records it is evident that the petitioner retired from
services after attaining age of superannuation. At this juncture it would
be relevant to notice the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in
case of Rafq Masih (Supra) where in Supreme Court has clearly held
certain situations under which recoveries would become impermissible.
Paragraph 18 of the said judgment is reproduced herein 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). (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 fve 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."
7. The impugned recovery order was passed after few months of
retirement of the petitioner for recovery of amount from his retiral dues.
Placing reliance upon the case of Rafiq Masih (supra) the Hon'ble
Supreme Court in case of Thomas Daniel Vs. State of Kerala and
others reported in 2022 SCC OnLine has quashed the recovery of
excess amount paid to the petitioner and observed in paragraph 9 as
under:-
"9. This Court in a catena of decisions has consistently
held that if the excess amount was not paid on account
of any misrepresentation or fraud of the employee or if
such excess payment was made by the employer by
applying a wrong principle for calculating the
pay/allowance or on the basis of a particular
interpretation of rule/order which is subsequently found
to be erroneous, such excess payment of emoluments
or allowances are not recoverable. This relief against
the recovery is granted not because of any right of the
employees but in equity, exercising judicial discretion to
provide relief to the employees from the hardship that
will be caused if the recovery is ordered. This Court has
further held that if in a given case, it is proved that an
employee had knowledge that the payment received
was in excess of what was due or wrongly paid, or in
cases where error is detected or corrected within a short
time of wrong payment, the matter being in the realm of
judicial discretion, the courts may on the facts and
circumstances of any particular case order for recovery
of amount paid in excess."
8. In the light of above judgment, when the 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 is squarely
covered by the decision in the case of Rafiq Masih (supra). Therefore,
the impugned order dated 17.10.2023 (Annexure P/1) issued by the
respondent authorities for recovery of the excess payment is 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. The admissible retiral dues which
has not been paid to the petitioner, if any, will be released by the
respondents within that period.
9. As an upshot, the instant petition stands allowed with the aforesaid
observations and directions Certified Copy as per rules.
Sd/-
(Amitendra Kishore Prasad)
JUDGE
AMIT PATEL
