Recovery of excess payment from Class-IV employees is impermissible in the absence of misrepresentation.

The petitioner, a Class-IV employee serving as a Process Server at the District and Sessions Court, Mungeli, challenged a recovery order issued by respondent authorities.

Due to an administrative error, the petitioner’s pay scale was wrongly fixed at a higher rate in April 2003, which continued until October 2016.

Upon detecting the error, Respondent No. 3 issued an order on February 8, 2022, to recover the excess payment amounting to Rs. 38,928/-.

The petitioner contended that the recovery, initiated 16 years after the mistake, was legally barred as he was a Class-IV employee who had not committed any misrepresentation.

Whether the recovery of excess salary paid due to an administrative mistake is permissible from a Class-IV employee after a lapse of 16 years.

The Court primarily applied the legal principles established by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in State of Punjab v. Rafiq Masih (White Washer) and others (2015) 4 SCC 334.

This precedent clarifies that recovery from employees is impermissible in specific hardship situations, most notably: (i) recovery from Class-III and Class-IV (Group C and D) employees; and (ii) cases where excess payment was made for a period exceeding five years before the recovery order was issued.

The rule holds that such recovery is iniquitous and arbitrary, outweighing the employer's right to recover.

The Court analyzed the facts against the Rafiq Masih criteria and determined that the petitioner’s case was squarely covered by the protective guidelines.

It was noted that the petitioner is a Class-IV employee and played no role in the misrepresentation or the error in pay fixation.

The Court emphasized that the mistake persisted for 16 years (2003 to 2016) before the recovery order was issued in 2022.

Applying the Supreme Court's doctrine, the Court reasoned that enforcing recovery from a low-income employee after such a significant delay for a purely administrative error would be harsh and legally unsustainable.

It held that as a Class-IV employee from whom recovery was sought for a period exceeding five years without any fault on his part, the petitioner was entitled to relief under the law laid down in Rafiq Masih.