Recovery of excess pensionary benefits is impermissible absent fraud or misrepresentation by the recipient.

In brief

The question

1. Whether the respondent authorities are entitled to recover excess payments of dearness allowance from the pensions of the petitioners in the absence of any fraud or misrepresentation by the recipients?

The court held

The Court answered the issue in the negative, holding that the recovery orders were unsustainable.

It also directed

The High Court quashed the impugned recovery orders (Annexure P/1) in both writ petitions and allowed the petitions, thereby prohibiting the respondents from recovering the excess dearness allowance from the petitioners.

01Facts

The petitioners are widows of Police Constables who were killed during Naxalite operations.

¶ 1, 5

Following the death of their husbands, the petitioners received extraordinary pensions.

¶ 1, 3

However, the respondent bank (State Bank of India) erroneously included excess dearness allowance (DA) payments along with the pension.

¶ 1, 3

Consequently, the respondents issued recovery orders (Annexure P/1) to reclaim the excess amounts paid.

¶ 1

The petitioners challenged these orders, contending that the excess payment resulted from the bank's own mistake without any fraud or misrepresentation on their part, and that the recovery was initiated without providing an opportunity of hearing.

¶ 2

02Issues

i.1. Whether the respondent authorities are entitled to recover excess payments of dearness allowance from the pensions of the petitioners in the absence of any fraud or misrepresentation by the recipients?

¶ 1-3

03Law Applied

Recovery of excess payment is impermissible when the payment was made due to an administrative error by the employer or the bank, provided the recipient did not engage in fraud or misrepresentation to obtain the excess amount.

¶ 5

Recipients cannot be penalized for errors in pension fixation committed by the respondent authorities.

¶ 5

The Court specifically relied upon the precedent established in Smt. Dileshwari Yadav v. State of Chhattisgarh and Ors. (WPS No. 6883/2018, decided on 26.08.2025).

¶ 5

04Reasoning

The Court noted that the petitioners are the widows of personnel who died in the line of duty during Naxalite operations.

¶ 5

It was determined that the dearness allowance was incorrectly fixed and paid by the respondent bank itself, and the petitioners had made no misrepresentations to facilitate this error.

¶ 5

The Court reasoned that the petitioners cannot be held responsible or penalized for an administrative mistake committed by the bank's processing cell.

¶ 5

By applying the ratio from Smt. Dileshwari Yadav, the Court concluded that the recovery of these funds was legally unjustified as the fault lay entirely with the respondents.

¶ 5-6