IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.1536 of 2003 PAWAN KUMAR CHAUDHARI, aged about 34 years, son of late Anup Lal Chaudhari, resident of village-Chainpur, P.S. Kanti, District-Muzaffarpur. Versus 1.THE STATE OF BIHAR, through the Secretary, Rural Development Department (R.E.O), Vishweshwaraiya Bhawan, Bailey Road, Patna. 2.Chief Engineer, Rural Engineering Orgination-II (Rural Development Department), Government of Bihar, Visheshwaraiya Bhawan, Bailey Road, Patna. 3.The Superintending Engineer, Works Circle, Rural Engineering Organisation, Muzaffarpur. 4.The Executive Engineer, Works Division, Rural Engineering Organisation, Muzaffarpur. ----------- 10 10/8/2009 Heard counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the State. Prayer of the petitioner in this writ application is to quash the order dated 17.6.2002, whereby and whereunder, the petitioner’s pay scale has been reduced from Rs.4000-6000/- to Rs.3050-4590/-. Counsel for the petitioner very fairly would submit that appointment of the petitioner was made on the decision of the government but the higher pay scale was not in keeping with the government decision. He would, however, submit that the petitioner did not make any misrepresentation or seek any favour by way of getting the higher pay scale and therefore if the respondents had paid salary to the petitioner in the higher pay scale on the strength of the valid order, the petitioner should not be subjected to at least recovery of that portion. Counsel for the State would not be in a position to contradict this position that the petitioner’s salary on the higher 2 pay scale of Rs. 4000-6000/- was fixed by the departmental authority in ignorance and/or defiance of the government decision without any misrepresentation on the part of the petitioner. That being so, while this Court would approve the decision contained in the impugned order dated 17.6.2002 sofar it relates to scaling down salary of the petitioner from Rs.4000- 6000/- to Rs. 3050-4590/- from the date of the order, i.e, 17.6.2002, the petitioner will not be subjected to any recovery for the earlier payment to him in the pay scale of Rs. 4000-6000/-. It however goes without saying that the initial salary of the petitioner and any further other consequential benefit of such salary should be based only on the basis of Rs.3050-4590/- The limited interference made by this Court is only to safe guard the petitioner from rigours of recovery of excess amount. It has to be also noted that such recovery from salary of the petitioner was already stayed by an order of this Court dated 5.3.2003 and therefore if any excess amount was recovered from the petitioner that must be refunded back to the petitioner. With the aforementioned observations/directions this application is finally disposed of. Abhay Kumar (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)