Recovery of excess pay from retired Class III employees is impermissible despite undertakings given at retirement.

The petitioner, a retired Sub-Inspector, challenged an order dated 21-05-2025 and an associated recovery chart issued by Respondent No. 3.

Following his retirement, the respondents sought to recover ₹2,05,813/- from his retiral dues on the grounds of excess payments made due to an erroneous salary re-fixation.

The State contended that the recovery was valid because the petitioner had signed an undertaking/consent form regarding excess payments during the preparation of his pension papers.

The petitioner argued that such recovery from a retired employee is legally impermissible.

1. Whether the respondents can recover excess payments made due to erroneous pay fixation from a retired employee's retiral benefits based on an undertaking given at the time of retirement.

2. Whether an undertaking provided at the stage of superannuation qualifies as a "voluntary" undertaking to exempt the case from the protections against recovery.

The court applied the principle from State of Punjab v. Rafiq Masih (White Washer) (2015), which prohibits recovery from retired employees or those due to retire within one year, and from Class III/IV employees.

It further relied on the Full Bench decision in State of Madhya Pradesh v. Jagdish Prasad Dubey (2024), which held that recovery from pensionary benefits based on an undertaking is only valid if the undertaking was given before the grant of the benefit (pay re-fixation) and was not a "forced" undertaking.

The court also noted the Division Bench ruling in State of Madhya Pradesh v. Ramrao Bhimte (2025), affirming that post-retirement recoveries are generally impermissible.

The court found that the excess payments were not due to any misrepresentation by the petitioner but resulted from the respondents' own erroneous fixation.

Applying the Jagdish Prasad Dubey framework, the court observed that the petitioner did not furnish any undertaking when the pay benefits were originally extended; instead, the undertaking was obtained only at the time of retirement.

The court reasoned that an undertaking given at the stage of retirement is effectively "forced" or involuntary and cannot be used to justify recovering payments made decades earlier.

Consequently, the State failed to establish that the petitioner had voluntarily waived his protections against recovery at the relevant time.

The court ordered the respondents to refund any recovered amount with 6% interest per annum within three months; failure to do so would trigger a 12% interest rate until actual payment.

However, the court upheld the revised (corrected) pay fixation itself.