Civil Writ Petition. No.14576 of 2008 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.14576 of 2008 Decided on : 27-08-2009 Cheta Devi .... Petitioner VERSUS Punjab State Electricity Board, Patiala and others .... Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SATISH KUMAR MITTAL. Present:- Mr. S.K. Arora, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. H.S. Grewal, Advocate, for the respondents. SATISH KUMAR MITTAL, J (Oral). The petitioner, who is widow of the deceased employee and was getting the family pension, has filed the instant petition for quashing the action of the respondents whereby respondents have reduced her family pension from Rs.11932/- to Rs.6050/- and have started effecting recovery of Rs.3800/- per month from her family pension w.e.f. July, 2007. Undisputedly, the pension was reduced on account of wrongful payment of dearness allowance. It is not a matter of dispute between the parties that the payment of dearness allowance to the petitioner was not based on any misrepresentation at her hand. The said dearness allowance was wrongly paid to her by the respondents unilaterally. Therefore, in Civil Writ Petition. No.14576 of 2008 -2- view of the decision rendered by the Apex Court in Sahib Ram Vs. State of Haryana & Others, 1994 (5) SLR, 753, in the case of similarly situated family pensioners in C.W.P. No.891 of 2003, decided on 20.1.2004 (Mukhtiar Singh Vs. State of Punjab & others), it was held that the respondents are not entitled to recover the said amount from the petitioner. Counsel for the petitioner states that in the judgment passed by this Court in C.W.P. No.8158 of 2003 decided on 9.08.2005 (Gurdev Kaur Vs. Punjab State Electricity Board & others), the respondents were directed not to recover the amount from the petitioner on account of wrongful payment of dearness allowance and if any amount has been recovered, the same shall be refunded to the petitioner. The above said legal and factual position has not been controverted by the counsel for the respondents, and he has no objection if the same direction is issued in this case. Consequently, this writ petition is partly allowed and the respondents are directed not to recover any amount from the petitioner on account of excess payment of dearness allowance and if any amount in that respect has been recovered, the same will be refunded to her within two months. 27th August, 2009. (SATISH KUMAR MITTAL) Monika JUDGE