Allahabad HC Allows Recovery Of Excess Amount From Employees That Was Erroneously Extended Under MACPS
|The Allahabad High Court allowed the recovery of the excess amount that was extended to the employees under the 'Modified Assured Career Progression Scheme'.
The bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Om Prakash Shukla while hearing a bunch of Writ Petitions observed, “…all the respondents had already been promoted/granted upgradation thrice, therefore, there was no application of the 'MACPS', yet erroneously the benefit of financial upgradation was extended to them…”
Senior Advocate SB Pandey appeared for the Appellant and Advocate Savita Jain appeared for the Respondent.
Brief Facts-
The case of the Petitioners is that all the Respondents in the Petitions had been granted three promotions/financial upgradation, therefore, given three promotions already having been granted to them, they were not entitled to any financial upgradation under the 'Assured Career Progression Scheme. Nevertheless, they were wrongly granted the benefit of 'Modified Assured Career Progression Scheme. They were erroneously given the benefit of a 3rd financial upgrade.
The Court noted, “the appellants were cautious enough to incorporate a condition that the pay fixation consequent to grant of such financial upgradation was subject to post audit and in light of audit objection, over payment, if any, shall be recovered from the officials in one lump sum and that it was being extended to the respondents subject to the said condition.”
The Court said that in the present case, the Audit and Account Section raised an objection that there was overpayment on account of the erroneous grant of 3rd financial upgradation whereas all the officers had already availed three promotions and, therefore, the benefit was not available, accordingly, recovery was suggested so that the pension paper could be finalised.
The Court quashed the impugned judgments and dismissed the Original Applications.
Accordingly, the Court allowed the Petitions.
Cause Title: Union Of India Thru. Secy. Ministry Of Information And Broadcasting , New Delhi And Others v. Arun Prakash Srivastava (Neutral Citation: 2024:AHC-LKO:66845-DB)
Appearance:
Appellant: Senior Advocate SB Pandey, Advocates Ashwani Kumar Singh and Varun Pandey
Respondent: Advocates Savita Jain and Raj Kumar Dwivedi