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B. Radhakrishnan v. State of Tamil Nadu & Ors.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal No. 13407 of 2015)Decided 17 Nov 2015
Civil Appeal No. 13407 of 2015
Justice J. Chelameswar · Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre

Background

Two police constables in Coimbatore claimed that their pay should be stepped up to match that of junior colleagues who had moved to the Armed Reserve and received higher pay through promotion. The Madras High Court's single judge allowed their claim and the pay was stepped up, but on appeal the Division Bench set aside that decision. The State then sought to recover the excess pay that had been paid to them in the meantime.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the appeals in part. The constables did not challenge the State's main decision on pay parity and confined their appeal to the recovery of the excess amount. Relying on the three-judge bench decision in Shyam Babu Verma (1994), the Court held that where excess payment was made without any fault, misrepresentation or illegality on the employee's part, it would not be just to recover it. The impugned order was modified to direct that no recovery of the excess amount paid on the basis of the stepped-up pay be made.

Lesson Learnt

When an employee has been paid more than due because of an official order, and the employee did nothing wrong to obtain it, the employer generally cannot recover the excess later. This protects ordinary employees from being asked to repay money they received in good faith.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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