The Madurai bench of the Madras high court has quashed an order of the superintendent of police, Tirunelveli for recovering a sum from the daughter of a deceased sub-inspector on the grounds that his pension benefits were disbursed on wrong calculation. T Josehphine Latha of Tirunelveli had challenged the order of SP, Tirunelveli issued on September 3, 2010 directing her to return the amount which was excessively disbursed as pension benefits to her, after the death of her father, stating that it was fixed wrongly.
The petitioner said that in his order, the SP directed the recovery of a sum of
Rs 32,167 from the legal representatives of late A Thanislas, who died in a road accident on September 2, 2004, when he was working as special sub-inspector of police
in Tirunelveli. Subsequent to her father's death, her mother died on March 7, 2008 and Rs 7,04,578 as pension benefits were disbursed to her.
Latha contended that without giving an opportunity and after a lapse of more than 10 years, the recovery was sought to be made. According to her, the fixation of pay scale to her father was not made on the representation of her father. Therefore, it was not open to the SP to issue the impugned order of recovery after six years of disbursements. Setting aside the order of the SP, Justice S Manikumar observed, "In view of the manifest illegality in the impugned order, wherein the violation of principals of natural justice, is explicit". The judge further observed, "Considering the fact that recovery has been ordered after a lapse of 10 years from service from the date of fixation of pay scale and after the demise of the government servant, this court is of the opinion that the legal representative should not penalise, even assuming that there was any error in fixation of pay scale."
Courtesy:TOI
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