Recovery of excess pay from retired employees is impermissible absent fraud or misrepresentation.

The petitioner was appointed as a Dharat Mahaldar in 1986 and regularized in 1987.

He was re-designated as a Building/Sanitation Assistant in 1995 and promoted to Sanitary Inspector in 2003.

In 2010, he was placed in the pay scale of Rs. 5700–10100 pending Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) clearance.

Following his retirement on April 30, 2025, respondent No. 2 issued an order dated July 9, 2024 (impugned order), rescinding his 1995 re-designation and 2010 pay scale placement ab initio.

The order sought to recover "excess pay" from the petitioner’s retirement benefits on the grounds that the initial re-designation was by an incompetent authority and the 2010 upgrade was never cleared by the DPC.

1. Whether the respondents are legally justified in effecting recovery of excess pay from the pension and pensionary dues of the petitioner after his retirement.

2. Whether the respondents have the right to re-fix the petitioner’s pension based on a lower grade because his higher pay scale placement was never confirmed by the DPC.

The court primarily applied the legal principles established by the Supreme Court of India in State of Punjab & Ors v. Rafiq Masih (White Washer), AIR 2015 SC 696.

This precedent dictates that recovery from employees is impermissible in specific situations, including: (i) recovery from Class-III/IV employees; (ii) recovery from retired employees or those due to retire within a year; and (iii) recovery where excess payment was made for a period exceeding five years before the order.

The court considered the principle that a conditional promotion (pending DPC clearance) does not grant a vested right to a confirmed scale if the condition is never met.

The court observed that the petitioner retired in April 2025, while the recovery order was issued in July 2025, placing the case squarely within the prohibitions laid down in Rafiq Masih.

Since there was no evidence of fraud or misrepresentation by the petitioner—who discharged his higher duties for years—the respondents could not recover salary already paid.

The court reasoned that because the petitioner’s 2010 placement in the Rs. 5700–10100 scale was expressly "pending clearance by the DPC" and such clearance never occurred, he never attained a legal right to that specific grade for pensionary calculations.

The court partly allowed the writ petition and held that the respondents are within their rights to re-fix (lower) the petitioner’s pension by ignoring the unconfirmed pay scale of Rs. 5700–10100, directing the re-fixation of pension accordingly.