Civil Writ Petition No.2475 of 2008 : 1 : IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: July 16, 2009 Kushwant Kaur Khosla ...Petitioner VERSUS State of Haryana & others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Present: Mr.B.P.S.Dhaliwal, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.Harish Rathee, Sr.DAG, Haryana, for respondent Nos.1, 3 and 4. Mr.H.N.Mehtani, Advocate, for respondent No.2. ***** RANJIT SINGH, J. The petitioner retired from the Health Department, Government of Haryana on 31.12.1997. Her eligibility for pension was calculated and her basic pension was fixed as Rs.2326/- plus dearness allowance. After commuting part of pension, a sum of Rs.1,00,254/- were paid to her. On a revision of pay scale in the Civil Writ Petition No.2475 of 2008 : 2 : year 1999, the basic pension of the petitioner was revised and another sum of Rs.1,93,652/- was paid to her as part of a commuted pension. In the year 2007, the petitioner has been informed by State Bank of Patiala saying that an excess amount of Rs.1,61,676/- has been paid to her and is required to be recovered. Accountant General, Haryana also wrote a letter to the petitioner for recovery of this amount and an additional sum of Rs.44,451/- as an interest on this excess payment made to the petitioner. The petitioner has accordingly filed this writ petition to impugn this order. While issuing notice of motion, recovery was stayed. Reply on behalf of respondent No.2 is filed. State counsel as well as counsel for the Bank have justified the recovery since the excess payment was made. Counsel representing the petitioner very fairly concedes this fact that excess payment was made, but would plead that there was no misrepresentation on the part of the petitioner. It was the respondents, who themselves calculated the amount payable to the petitioner and excess payment, if any, was made on account of the fault on the part of the respondents. In this background, the counsel would contend that there would not be any justification for the respondents to recover this excess payment. However, he would not dispute that in future the petitioner is required to be paid the correct amount which is due to her. Counsel for the Bank has drawn my attention to an undertaking, Annexure P-2, given by the petitioner where she agreed for deduction from her pension in order to effect recovery of excess amount. Counsel for the petitioner would explain this by saying that the petitioner was literally forced to give this undertaking and this was Civil Writ Petition No.2475 of 2008 : 3 : not voluntary act on her part. He has also drawn my attention to the observations made by Full Bench of this court while deciding various writ petitions through common order, lead case being CWP No.2799 of 2008, where it is held that when an authority grants a benefit, no matter erroneously, and the employee concerned is not at fault and for which he was not in any way responsible for the mistake committed, then the authorities concerned are not entitled to recover the benefit that has been received by the employee on the basis of any such erroneous grant. There is not much dispute before me that the petitioner was not in any manner responsible for this excess payment. Responsibility in this regard was that of the respondents. Thus, the prayer made by the petitioner is covered by the ratio of the decision of the Full Bench in Civil Writ Petition No.2799 of 2008 (Budh Ram and others Vs. State of Haryana and others), referred to above and decided on 22.5.2009. It may sound strange that the respondents are not only recovering the excess payment made, but have burdened the petitioner with an interest which is not a small amount, but a substantial one being Rs.44,451/-. For their own fault, they are putting burden on the petitioner, a poor retired lady. She must be having sleepless nights. In view of the observations made by the Full Bench of this court, the case for recovery of the amount paid in excess due to the fault of the respondents is not made out. The petitioner cannot be asked to pay for the faults and mistake of the respondents. The recovery of the amount, if allowed, would make it difficult for the petitioner to subsist. The writ petition is accordingly allowed. The order Civil Writ Petition No.2475 of 2008 : 4 : directing recovery of the excess amount is quashed. The petitioner would be paid the pension as per her entitlement in future. Recovery which has already been effected need not be refunded. July 16 2009 ( RANJIT SINGH ) ramesh JUDGE