Recovery of excess salary paid for over five years is impermissible absent employee fraud.

The applicant was appointed as a Junior Statistical Investigator in 2006.

After a brief stint as an Inspector in the Central Board of Excise and Customs (keeping lien in his parent department), he rejoined his parent department as a Junior Statistical Investigator on May 16, 2011, where his pay was fixed by the department.

On September 22, 2023—twelve years after the re-joining pay fixation—the respondents issued an order to recover ₹11,37,852/- in 56 installments, citing an error in pay fixation dating back to 2011.

The respondents argued that the applicant was a Group B officer and had been drawing "wrong pay" for years.

The applicant challenged the recovery, asserting there was no fraud or misrepresentation on his part and that the recovery was initiated after an excessive delay.

Whether the recovery of excess salary is permissible when the payment resulted from a departmental mistake and the recovery order was issued more than five years after the alleged error.

Whether the recovery is sustainable in the absence of any fraud or misrepresentation by the employee.

State of Punjab and Others v. Rafiq Masih (White Washer) (2015), which established that recoveries are impermissible if the excess payment was made for a period in excess of five years before the order of recovery is issued.

High Court of Punjab and Haryana v. Jagdev Singh, noting that recovery is only permissible if an undertaking was provided by the employee to refund excess payments.

Janardan Prasad Srivastava v. State of U.P. that errors committed by respondents without employee fraud cannot lead to recovery once the funds are consumed.

The Tribunal observed that the pay fixation was performed entirely by the respondent department, and there was no evidence or allegation that the applicant misrepresented facts or committed fraud to obtain the higher pay.

The Tribunal found that the present case was squarely covered by Clause (iii) of the Rafiq Masih judgment, as the recovery order was passed in 2023 for a pay fixation that occurred in 2011—a gap of more than ten years.

The court rejected the respondents' contention that the applicant's Group B status or the gross amount of his current salary justified the recovery, emphasizing that the lapse of time and the lack of employee fault made the recovery "iniquitous and arbitrary" under the established legal framework.

It held that the recovery was contrary to the law established in Rafiq Masih due to the significant time lapse and absence of fraud.

The respondents were directed to refund the amount already recovered from the applicant's salary, along with interest at the existing bank rate, within a period of three months.