Paras Nath Singh vs State Of Bihar & Ors

State of Bihar and he has since retired. In 1972, more

precisely on 29th of August, 1972, the appellant was

promoted to the post of Machine Boy and subsequent to

such promotion, he was made Routine Clerk on 13th of

June, 1974 and was allowed to function as such on the

said post. On 15th of April, 1995, the appellant was

given provisional First Time Bound Promotion with effect 2

from 13th of June, 1984. After about 10 years, more

precisely on 19th of September, 2005, the First Time

Bound Promotion granted to the appellant was

cancelled. In view of such cancellation of promotion,

direction was issued by the State/Respondent to recover

Rs. 1,01,529.50 from the salary of the appellant at the

rate of Rs. 5000/- per month.

3. Aggrieved by the aforesaid order directing recovery, the

appellant filed a writ petition before the High Court of Judicature at

Patna contending that since the time bound promotion given to him

was at the fag end of his employment and that the appellant, once

having worked in the time bound promotional post, recovery against

him was not justified. The writ petition, however, was dismissed by

a learned Judge of the High Court and affirmed by a Division Bench

of the High Court in a Letters Patent Appeal.

4. Feeling aggrieved, the appellant has filed this special leave

petition, which on grant of leave, was heard in presence of the

learned counsel for the parties.

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5. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties and

considering the fact that the State Authorities had allowed the

appellant to work for about 10 years and paid the salary at the

enhanced rate, in which the appellant had no role to play except

that he had given an undertaking to the Authorities that in the event,

his First Time Bound Promotion was cancelled, in that case, he

would be bound to refund the same.

6. Having considered the fact that the appellant was only a Class

IV employee in the State of Bihar and almost an illiterate person

and did not know the implications of giving such undertaking and in

the absence of any fraud and misrepresentation attributed to the

appellant and the amount being not so excessive, in particular Rs.

1,01,529.50, out of which certain amount has already been

recovered from the salary of the appellant by the State Authorities,

we are of the view that a lenient view should be taken and the

amount already paid by the State Authorities to the appellant shall

not be recovered.

7. However, whatever amount that has already been recovered,

shall not be paid back to the appellant.

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8. In view of the above, the impugned Judgments of the

High Court are set aside and the writ petition filed by the

appellant stands allowed. For the reasons aforesaid,

the appeal is allowed to the extent indicated above.

There will be no order as to costs.

........................J. [Tarun Chatterjee]

New Delhi; ........................J. April 21, 2009. [V.S.Sirpurkar]