The 1.86 fitment benefit is confined to specified contract-worker appointments delayed for administrative reasons.

The petitioners were selected as Typists and Steno-Typists pursuant to TNPSC Notification No.135 of 2007. Although selected in 2008, they were appointed in July and September 2009.

After the Tamil Nadu Revised Scales of Pay Rules, 2009 introduced revised pay scales, the Government issued G.O.Ms.No.340, Finance (Pay Cell) Department, dated 26 August 2010, providing a 1.86 fitment benefit in specified circumstances. The petitioners later received that benefit following pay refixation in 2022.

On 20 July 2026, the Principal Accountant General raised an audit objection that the benefit had been incorrectly extended and recommended pay revision and recovery, subject to an opportunity of hearing.

The petitioners challenged that communication under Article 226, seeking to prevent recovery and pay revision. They relied, among other things, on earlier orders granting the benefit and on State of Punjab v. Rafiq Masih.

Whether the petitioners, appointed after 1 June 2009, were entitled to the 1.86 fitment benefit under G.O.Ms.No.340 dated 26 August 2010.

Whether the audit communication of 20 July 2026 could be quashed, including on the ground that recovery was proposed without a prior hearing.

G.O.Ms.No.234, Finance (Pay Cell) Department, dated 1 June 2009, and G.O.Ms.No.258 dated 23 June 2009 implemented the revised pay structure and provided the 1.86 fitment benefit subject to the applicable cut-off provisions.

Under the Tamil Nadu Revised Scales of Pay Rules, 2009, Rule 9 governed the relevant pay fixation; Rule 13 empowered the Government to relax the Rules.

G.O.Ms.No.340 exercised that power to grant the benefit as a special case to specified employees selected before 1 June 2009 but appointed on or after that date due to administrative delay, while paragraph 6 excluded new recruits whose selection lists and appointment orders were issued after 1 June 2009.

The Court applied the Division Bench ruling in State of Tamil Nadu v. D. Mageswari, W.A.No.838 of 2026, which held that G.O.Ms.No.340 did not extend to employees appointed to Government service after 1 June 2009 who had not drawn the pre-revised pay considered by that order.

The petitioners’ reliance on Rafiq Masih was noted, but the Court did not decide its application to any eventual recovery; it held that the challenged communication was inter-departmental and that the petitioners could pursue remedies if a recovery show-cause notice was issued.

The Court read G.O.Ms.No.340 as a limited relaxation intended to correct a pay anomaly affecting specified contract employees and similarly situated employees selected before the cut-off date but appointed later for administrative reasons—not as a general benefit for all candidates selected before 1 June 2009.

The petitioners were appointed after that date and fell within the exclusion for new recruits under paragraph 6. The Court therefore found them ineligible for the fitment benefit, consistent with D. Mageswari.

It also treated the impugned audit proceedings as an inter-departmental communication, rather than a final recovery order, and left any challenge to a later show-cause notice or recovery action open.

It left the petitioners free to pursue their remedies if a show-cause notice for recovery was issued. No costs were awarded, and the connected miscellaneous petitions were closed.