Recovery of money from retired employee impermissible, says Madras HC

CHENNAI: Recovery of money from a retired employee is impermissible under law, said the Madras High Court while quashing the order issued by the Central University of Tamil Nadu to remit excess salary paid to a retired professor.

Citing a Supreme Court order in this regard, Justice Mummineni Sudheer Kumar said that the grounds on which the Central University proposed to recover Rs 16.49 lakh from the retired professor as excess salary could not be sustained, that too after three years after his retirement.

The judge then directed the university to release the terminal benefits and other amounts payable to the retired professor within two months.

Highlighting the lacunae in the proceedings initiated to recover the so-called excess salary, the judge noted that the amounts that are alleged to have been paid in excess were from January 6, 2012, whereas the proceedings were initiated in 2021 almost after a decade. He had attained superannuation in April 2018, the court pointed out.

The petitioner, Nirmal Selvamony, moved the petition seeking to direct the Central University of Tamil Nadu to settle the terminal benefits, gratuity and earned leave encashment for the service he rendered. He was working at the university as an assistant professor in 2011. Later, he was promoted as professor and attained superannuation in 2018.

But when he claimed the terminal benefits, instead of releasing the amount, the university issued a communication to him directing him to pay Rs 16.49 lakh purported to be an excess salary paid to him. Challenging this, he moved the court.

In its response, the university said he had previously worked in the Madras Christian College, Chennai, for 26 years and has been drawing a pension for the service. Therefore, his pay has to be fixed on his re-employment by adjusting the pension. Quoting the Central Civil Services (Fixation of Pay of Reemployed Pensioners) Orders, 1986, the university contended that his salary was fixed without adjusting the pension amount that he had been drawing. Hence, the order was issued to remit the salary paid, it argued.

Countering this, Selvamony submitted that he was not reemployed in civil services or the post in connection with the affairs of the Union government. Hence, the order issued by the university was not sustainable under the order.