Stay on recovering extra pay to loco pilots

Chennai

The petitioners, who are working as loco pilots, were served the show-cause notice for recovery of the excess payment made to them on account of promotion in the pre-revised VI Pay Commission. The petition was filed by Subbarathanam, U Ramanathan, Munuswamy, T Vijayakumar, S Premkumar, Raja Sekar, Baidyanath Soren and P Eshwaraiah seeking the tribunal to declare the recovery as impermissible, arbitrary, harsh and iniquitous.

The Ministry of Railways had decided to recover the excess amount citing Chandi Prasad Uniyal judgment of Supreme Court, which had held that the excess amount paid due to wrong fixation of pay scale of teachers and principals based on the Pay Commission report could be recovered from the recipients.

After receiving the show-cause notice dated April 24, 2019, for recovery of the excess payment on account of promotion in the pre-revised VI Pay Commission, they had sent representations of several dates the next month, which are still pending for consideration, they said in the petition, seeking interim stay.

The Centre and Railways submitted that they were ready to hear the representations. Recording the submissions, judicial member P Madhavan and administrative member T Jacob said, “We deem it appropriate to direct the competent authority to consider the representations of the applicants in accordance with the law and pass a reasoned and speaking order. In the meantime, the respondents are directed not to make any recovery from the applicants.”