Don’t recover excess payment from Class III, IV ex-staff: SC

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, December 18

The Supreme Court today directed the Punjab Government not to recover excess payments made to Class III and IV employees due to wrong calculation of their salary and other benefits.

A Bench headed by Justice JS Khehar also asked the state to exempt retired employees and those who would retire within one year from recovery. Further, there should not be any recovery if the excess payment had been made for more than five years and from those who were wrongly discharging duties of posts higher than the positions they were entitled to.

The apex court also set aside the recovery orders that were passed arbitrarily and in an iniquitous manner. The Bench issued the directives while dismissing about 250 appeals filed by the state government mostly through its standing counsel JS Chhabra.

The state had come challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s January 17, 2011, ruling in its employees’ favour. The Supreme Court detached three cases from the batch of appeals as these employees had agreed to repay the excess payment or made other commitments. These cases would be heard further and would not be covered under today’s judgment.