IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.W.P. No.17038 of 2006 DATE OF DECISION: APRIL 24, 2009 Daya Ram .....PETITIONER Versus Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, Panchkula and others ....RESPONDENTS CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE SATISH KUMAR MITTAL --- Present: Mr.P.K. Sachdev, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.Gaurav Mohunta, Advocate, for the respondents. .. SATISH KUMAR MITTAL, J. (Oral) The petitioner, who is working as Lineman in the office of Assistant Executive Engineer, Operation Sub Division, U.H.B.V.L., Ambala City, has filed the instant petition praying for quashing the order dated 2.9.2005 (Annexure P4) whereby respondent No.3 has ordered to recover an amount of Rs.13,046/- from the petitioner, which, according to him was wrongly paid due to wrong re-fixation of ACP of the petitioner. Counsel for the respondents argued that as per the Instructions dated 27.9.2004 (Annexure R-4), the respondents were required to fix the pay in the ACP scales under the office order dated 27.2.1998 w.e.f. 1.1.1997, whereas in case of the petitioner the same was wrongly fixed w.e.f. 1.5.1996, and on that account of wrong fixation, the excess amount was paid to the petitioner to the tune of Rs.13,046/-. C.W.P. No.17038 of 2006 -2- Learned counsel for the petitioner could not dispute the fact that the first ACP scale was to be given to the petitioner only w.e.f. 1.1.1997 and it was wrongly given to him w.e.f. 1.5.1996. However, he submitted that the respondents had granted the benefit of ACP scale to the petitioner w.e.f. 1.5.1996 on their own without any representation/misrepresentation or fraud played by the petitioner. Therefore, in view of the decisions of the Supreme Court in Sahib Ram v. State of Haryana, 1995 Supp (1) SCC 18 and Syed Abdul Qadir and others v. State of Bihar and others, (2009) 3 SCC 475, the respondents could not have recovered the said amount from the petitioner in the year 2004. Mr.Gaurav Mohunta, learned counsel for the respondents could not controvert the aforesaid legal position or cite any contrary judgment. In view of the above facts and the law laid down in Sahib Ram's case (supra) and Syed Abdul Qadir's case (supra), in my opinion, the respondents were not justified in deducting the amount of Rs.13,046/- from the the petitioner which they have concededly deducted from the salary of the petitioner in the year 2004. Thus, the instant petition is partly allowed and the respondents are directed to refund the amount of Rs.13,046/-, which was deducted from the salary of the petitioner, within a period of two months from the date of receipt of copy of this order. April 24, 2009 (SATISH KUMAR MITTAL) vkg JUDGE