Court Cases

Patna High Court Rules in Favor of Retired CISF Officer, Cancels Recovery of Excess Pension Payments


➡️ Click here to join our Whatsapp Group

The Patna High Court has ruled in favor of Pramod Kumar Sinha, a retired Sub-Inspector from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), and ordered the restoration of his full pension and gratuity without any deductions. The court’s decision came after Sinha challenged the recovery of excess pension payments that were made to him due to an administrative error by the CISF.

A Single Judge Bench, led by Justice Purnendu Singh, allowed the writ petition filed by Sinha, who had retired from CISF in 2023. Sinha was informed by the CISF in November 2023 that his pay fixation from 2008 was incorrect, and as a result, he had been overpaid by Rs. 2,13,908. The CISF authorities decided to recover this excess amount from his gratuity. However, Sinha argued that this recovery was unlawful, as no show-cause notice or opportunity to be heard had been provided to him.

Sinha contended that the recovery was arbitrary and violated his constitutional rights under Article 14, which guarantees equality before the law. He emphasized that the overpayment was due to a mistake by the department, and that he had not committed any misrepresentation or fraud. Citing the landmark case State of Punjab v. Rafiq Masih (2015), Sinha argued that recovery of excess payments from retired Class-III employees is not permissible when the error is administrative and not the fault of the employee.

The Union government, on the other hand, argued that Sinha had signed an undertaking agreeing to the recovery of any excess payments during his pay revision. They referred to another case, High Court of Punjab and Haryana v. Jagdev Singh (2016), where the recovery was upheld because the employee had voluntarily agreed to it. The Union also cited CISF regulations to support their stance.

However, the court analyzed the applicability of the Rafiq Masih case and concluded that the principles from this case applied to Sinha’s situation. The court noted that Rafiq Masih explicitly prohibits recovery from retired Class-III employees when the overpayment results from administrative errors, not employee misconduct. Since Sinha had not misrepresented any facts, the court ruled that the recovery was illegal.

Additionally, the court distinguished Sinha’s case from Jagdev Singh, where the employee had voluntarily agreed to the recovery. In Sinha’s case, the court found that as a Class-III employee, he was entitled to protection under the Rafiq Masih ruling.

In its final ruling, the court quashed the recovery orders and directed the Union to restore Sinha’s pension and gratuity in full, without any deductions. This decision underscores the legal protection for retired Class-III employees against unjust recoveries of excess payments due to administrative errors.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *