Recovery of excess payment due to wrong fixation of pay;

Punjab Govt issues new guidelines

Chandigarh, October 12, 2012: The Punjab government has issued new guidelines regarding the recovery of wrongly paid benefits to an employee of the state or its instrumentalities on the basis of recent judgement of Supreme Court of India, superseding the existing instructions.

Divulging the details, an official spokesman of Finance Department said that in pursuance of judgement dated August, 17, 2012 of Supreme Court of India, it has now been decided that the recovery of wrongly paid benefits in various types of cases would be regulated as; cases in which wrongly paid benefits was noticed and recovery thereof was ordered or made but the concerned employee approached the High Court and the recovery was either stopped or refunded in compliance with the orders of High Court and if such cases have already attained finality, these may not be reopened; secondly, cases in which wrongly paid benefit was noticed and recovery thereof was started but the concerned employee approached the High Court and has obtained a judicial verdict in his favour which is yet to be implemented, in such cases suitable judicial proceedings, such as appeal or review, would be instituted in a court of competent jurisdiction in accordance with the law laid down in the judgement; third, the cases in which wrongly paid benefit came into notice but recovery thereof was not made in view of the guidelines issued by the government. Since these instructions were not the subject matter of judicial scrutiny before the High Court, such cases would be reopened and necessary recovery would be effected; fourth, the cases in which the wrongly paid benefit has either already come into notice or would come into notice after the date of issue of the guidelines of government through letter to all departments in this regard, in such cases recovery would be made; fifth, in the cases of extreme hardship in which an exception is provided as per judgement, these cases related to those recipients of wrongly paid benefits who have either retired or are on the verge of retirement or who are employed in the lower rung services i.e. in Group-D. Recovery in such case would be waived with the specific approval of the Department of Finance and finally, cases of wrongly paid benefits which are still pending in the courts; such cases would be defended in the light of the judgement of Supreme Court.

The spokesperson further said that all recoveries required to be made under these orders and these would be effected after following the proper procedure.