T.S.THAKUR, J.

1. A Division Bench of this Court has referred to the Full Bench the following question of law for an authoritative pronouncement:

"Whether the Government is entitled to recover from an employee any payment made in excess of what he was otherwise entitled to, on account of any mistake or bona fide but erroneous interpretation or belief regarding any Rule, Regulation or government instructions whatsoever especially in cases where the employee concerned is not guilty of any fraud or misrepresentation in claiming or receiving such monetary benefits."

2. The reference was necessitated by what the Division Bench of this Court felt was a conflict between the decisions delivered by the supreme Court on the question whether the financial benefits granted to an employee under a mistaken interpretation or application of a rule or Regulation can be recovered from him, if the employee himself was not responsible for any fraud or misrepresentation? In Sahib Ram V/s. State of Haryana, (1995) Suppl 1 SCC 18 and purshotam Lal and Others V/s. State of Bihar and others (2007) 1 RSJ 150, Court answered the question in the negative and held that no recovery could be made if the employee was not himself responsible for any fraud or misrepresentation in the grant of the benefit. The other line of decisions, which according to the Division Bench came in conflict with the above decisions discourage undue enrichment of any person not entitled to hold the benefit granted to him. These decisions include those delivered by the Supreme Court in Union of india V/s. Smt. Sujata Vedachalam and Others air 2000 SC 2709 : (2000) 9 SCC 187, comptroller and Auditor General of India and others V/s. Farid Sattar, AIR 2000 SC 1557 : (2000) 4 SCC 13 and Mafatlal Industries Ltd. and Others V/s. Union of India and Others, (1997)5 SCC 536. The Division Bench felt that since there was an apparent cleavage in the decisions delivered by their Lordships as well as those delivered by this Court from time to time and since a large number of cases on the subject matter are frequently coming up before this court, an authoritative pronouncement by a larger Bench of this Court would be more appropriate and helpful in deciding such cases.

3. We have heard at some length the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. The Division Bench has not in the order of reference made by it set out the factual backdrop in which the issue regarding recovery of benefits received by the employees arises for consideration. Having gone through the averments made in the writ petitions, we are of the opinion that we also need not set out in detail the factual matrix in which the question referred to us arises for consideration for determination especially when the facts appear to us to be peculiar to each case forming part of this Bunch. Having said so, the question referred to us can in pur opinion be seen from three distinct dimensions. These are:

(i) Cases in which the benefits sought to be recovered from the employees were granted to them on the basis of any fraud, misrepresentation or any other act of deception;

(ii) Cases in which the benefits sought to be recovered were granted on the basis of a bona fide mistake committed by the authority granting the same while applying or interpreting a provision contained in the service rule, regulation or any other memo or circular authorizing such grant regardless whether or not grant of benefits involved the performance of higher or more onerous duties by the employee concerned;

(iii) Cases that do not fall in either one of the above two categories but where the nature of the benefit and extent is so unconnected with his service conditions that the employee must be presumed to have known that the benefit was flowing to him undeservedly because of a mistake by the authority granting the same.

4. We shall for the sake of clarity deal with each one of the categories separately, hoping that the categorization made by us