### Recovery of Excess Salary After Retirement Is Impermissible Absent Fraud or Voluntary Undertaking During Pay Fixation

The petitioner served as a Deputy Commissioner Excise and retired on May 31, 2017.

Post-retirement, the respondent State issued recovery orders (Annexures P/1 & P/2) seeking to recover Rs. 78,319/- attributed to excess salary payments made due to a wrong pay fixation from July 1, 2006, to July 1, 2016.

The petitioner challenged these orders on the grounds that they were issued without a show-cause notice or an opportunity for a hearing, and that recovery from a retired employee for long-past errors is legally impermissible.

The State contended that the recovery was valid as the petitioner had deposited the amount without protest.

1. Whether the recovery of excess salary payments from a retired employee, made due to erroneous pay fixation over a period exceeding five years, is legally permissible.

2. Whether an undertaking for recovery can be enforced if it was not given voluntarily at the time of the initial pay fixation.

The court primarily applied the principles from the Supreme Court decision in State of Punjab v. Rafiq Masih (White Washer), which prohibits recovery from retired employees or when excess payment was made for a period exceeding five years prior to the recovery order.

It further relied on the Full Bench decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in State of Madhya Pradesh v. Jagdish Prasad Dubey, which established that recoveries from pensionary benefits require following due procedures and that "forced" undertakings given during pay refixation are unenforceable.

Additionally, it cited Jogeswar Sahoo v. District Judge, Cuttack, emphasizing that recovery is unsustainable if the employee was not afforded a hearing and was not responsible for fraud or misrepresentation.

The court found that the petitioner was a retired officer and the alleged excess payments spanned a decade (2006–2016), placing the case squarely within the prohibitions laid out in Rafiq Masih.

Regarding the State's claim of an undertaking, the court observed that no specific undertaking was furnished by the petitioner at the time of the initial pay fixation in 2006.

Relying on Ravindra Kumar Joshi v. State of M.P., the court reasoned that any undertaking not proven to be voluntary is deemed "forced" and cannot be the basis for recovery.

Since the State failed to show the petitioner committed any fraud or was given an opportunity to be heard before the recovery, the court determined the action was iniquitous and arbitrary.

It held that recovery from a retired employee for a period exceeding five years without a voluntary undertaking or a show-cause notice is impermissible.

The respondents were directed to refund the recovered amount of Rs. 78,319/- to the petitioner with interest @ 6% per annum from the date of retirement until the actual date of payment, to be completed within 90 days.