IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No 13946 of 2007 Jiveshwar Choudhary, s/o late Gulab Choudhary, resident of village - Behta, P S - Sonebarsa, Dist - Saharsa - Petitioner Versus 1 The Bihar State Electricity Board through its Chairman, Vidyut Bhawan, Bailey Road, Patna 2 Secretary, Bihar State Electricity Board, Vidyut Bhawan, Bailey Road, Patna 3 Financial Controller, Bihar State Electricity Board, Vidyut Bhawan, Bailey Road, Patna 4 Electrical Executive Engineer, Electric Supply Division, Khagaria - Respondents ----------- 2 28.01.2009 The petitioner superannuated from service of the Bihar State Electricity Board on 31st March, 2002. After his retirement, he has been served with a notice by which he has been asked to refund to the Board an amount of Rs 1,00,000/- allegedly on account of excess pay paid to him on account of wrong fixation of pay. The said amount is being charged to gratuity. The petitioner, on being disclosed in the counter affidavit the basis for this correction, has filed a rejoinder bringing on record the standing orders which the auditors have not looked while refixing the pay. Petitioner asserts that the pay was duly fixed and the interpretation of auditors is wrong. The payment, which was being made to the petitioner allegedly in excess, was from 1977 and is now being sought to be recovered in 2006 after almost three decades. Heard the parties and with their consent, the writ petition is being disposed of at the stage of admission itself. Even it be conceded that there is a right to correct such mistakes after such a long time, this Court cannot countenance the detriment it causes to the victim employee. This Court finds it highly inequitous to permit such a recovery. If this is allowed after such a long time, it will only give rise to inefficiency at the first and inequitous results for the employee. Undisputedly, the petitioner has not contributed to the mistake rather the petitioner asserts that the auditors have failed to take note of subsequent standing orders which, if taken note of, would have rendered the whole exercise futile. I may only refer to two recent decisions of the Apex Court being Babulal Jain -Versus- State of M P & Others (2007) 6 Supreme Court Cases 180 and Union of India -Versus- S R Dhingra & Others (2008) 2 Supreme Court Cases 229 wherein the Apex Court has found that notwithstanding the power to rectify a mistake, recoveries cannot be made for past mistakes. I, therefore, set aside that part of the order by which recovery has been ordered. Petitioner would be at liberty to represent to the appropriate authority in the Board as against the interpretation they have given for allegedly correcting the mistake and the authority would be dutybound to address himself to the representation of the petitioner and pass a speaking order in that regard and communicate the same to the petitioner against which petitioner may have his remedies as law may provide. The writ application, thus, stands disposed of. The amount deducted from gratuity has to be accordingly refunded to the petitioner within one month from today. M.E.H./ (Navaniti Prasad Singh)