DoPT O.M. – Recovery of wrongful/ excess payments made to Government servants

Earlier, the Department of Personnel & Training through its O.M. No.18/26/2011-Estt (Pay-I) dated 06th February, 2014 has advised the Ministries/ Departments to deal with wrongful/ excess payments in such a way that immediate corrective action must be taken on notice and that recovery should be made in all cases of overpayment barring few exceptions of extreme hardship. No waiver of recovery should be considered without the approval of Department of Expenditure.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court in Civil Appeal No.11527/2014 observed that it is not possible to say which situation will amount to hardship and summarized the following few situations, wherein recoveries made by the employer would be impermissible in law:

• Recovery from employees belonging to Class-III and Class-IV service (or Group ‘C’ and Group ‘D’ service).
• Recovery from retired employees, or employees who are due to retire within one year, of the order of recovery.
• Recovery from employees, when the excess payment has been made for a period in excess of five years, before the order of recovery is issued.
• Recovery in cases where an employee has wrongfully been required to discharge duties of a higher post, and has been paid accordingly, even though he should have rightfully been required to work against an inferior post.
• In any other case, where the Court arrives at the conclusion, that recovery if made from the employee, would be iniquitous or harsh or arbitrary to such an extent, as would far outweigh the equitable balance of the employer’s right to recover.

Now, the DoPT vide its O.M. No.18/03/2015-Estt. (Pay-I) dated 2nd March, 2016 while informing the above stand of Supreme Court conveyed that it had examined the issue with Department of Expenditure and Department of Legal Affairs and advised the Ministries/ Departments to deal with the issue of wrongful/ excess payments as per the court’s judgment. However, if waiver of recovery is to be considered, Department of Expenditure’s express approval is to be obtained in terms of DoPT’s O.M. No.18/26/2011-Estt (Pay-I) dated 06.02.2014.

The original O.M.s referred to above are placed below: