SRO Benefits Wrongfully Granted To Employee Cannot Be Recovered By Withdrawing Amounts From Salary: J&K High Court

The Jammu and Kashmir High Court held that if benefits under Self-Regulatory Organisation (SRO) scheme is wrongfully granted to the employee by the department without any fraud or misrepresentation played by the employee, the department is not at liberty to recover the same by effecting it from the salary of the employee or pensioner at any given point of time.

The Appellant department had discovered after going through the service book after the Respondent's retirement that he was incorrectly granted benefits under SRO 149 of 1973 that had been repealed and started to recover the same from his salary.

A bench of Chief Justice Tashi Rabstan, Justice MA Chowdhary observed that the benefits under SRO 87 & 149 were given voluntarily by the applicant and it was not the case of the writ petitioners that the benefits had been received by the applicant-respondent herein by way of fraud or misrepresentation.

It was the case of the respondent that benefits were recieved without any fraud or foulplay on his part and it was appellant that transfered the benefits voluntarily and benefits so granted cannot be recovered from the salary of the respondent.

The court upheld the order passed by the tribunal which quashed the order of recovering the amount from the employee respondent and directed the appellant to refund the amount so recovered from him prior to passing of the instant order within the period of 2 months.

The tribunal had relied on the State of Punjab v. Rafiq Masih wherein it was held that no recovery of any benefit so withdrawn by the class III & class IV employee can be initiated if there is no foul play on the part of the employee and benefit was given by employer voluntarily.

The tribunal had also directed that if the applicants/respondent have already retired, the employer/appellant shall pay pension to the applicants on the basis of last pay drawn by him.

BACKGROUND:

The respondent is Class-C/D employee of the Jal Shakti (Public Health Engineering) Department, who was granted benefits under SRO 87 of 1968 and SRO 149 of 1973 as well as SRO 193. The appellant/employer on going through the service record on his retirement found out he was not entitled to get the benefits so received and initiated recovery of these benefits from his salary.

The applicant challenged the order of recovery before the Central Administrative Tribunal which set-aside the said order and directed the respondent not to initiate the recovery against the applicant and also directed the employee that the amount which has been recovered shall be refunded to him within 2 months.

The tribunal also directed that if the applicant is retired, he should get the pension on the basis of last pay drawn by him.

Aggrieved by the judgment passed by the CAT the employee/appellant preferred an appeal by invoking the jurisdiction of the instant court.

APPEARANCE

Mrs. Monika Kohli, Sr. AAG. For Appellant

Mohinder Kumar, Advocate. For Respondent

Case-Title: UT of J&K through its Commissioner vs Kashmiri Lal

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (JKL) 136

Click Here To Read/Download Order