The main legal point established in the judgment is that no recovery can be made from an employee if the excess payment was not due to any fault on the employee's part, as determined by various legal provisions and precedents.

ORDER :

Heard Sri A.V.V.S. Bhujanga Rao, learned counsel for the petitioner, learned Government Pleader for School Education and learned Government Pleader for Finance and Planning.

2. The case of the petitioner, in brief, is as follows :

(a) The petitioner was initially appointed as a Language Pandit Grade-II on 20.10.1976 and he possessed Grade-I qualifications from the date of the petitioner’s initial appointment. The then Government of Andhra Pradesh issued G.O.Ms.No.330, Education, dated 10.08.1983 giving benefit of Grade-I scale from 10.08.1983 to the Grade-II Language Pandits, who possessed Grade-I qualification and appointed prior to 12.03.1982. As per the said G.O., the petitioner obtained the benefit of Grade-I scale from 10.08.1983, because the petitioner was appointed prior to 11.03.1982 and possessed Grade-I qualification. The petitioner retired from service after attaining age on superannuation on 30.04.2011 and that the petitioner’s last pay drawn is Rs.36,700/-. The benefit of Grade-I scale as per G.O.Ms.No.330, Education, dated 10.08.1983 is taken away by issuing orders in G.O.Ms.No.176 Education (SE.Ser.II) Department, dated22.12.2000. Aggrieved by the said orders, O.A.No.377 of 2001 and batch were filed before the Tribunal and the said Tribunal dismissed the said O.As upholding G.O.Ms.No.176 Education (SE.Ser.II) Department, dated 22.12.2000. Aggrieved by the orders of the Tribunal, a batch of writ petitions i.e. W.P.Nos.26260 of 2000 were filed before the High Court. The Division Bench of the High Court vide its judgment dated 12.09.2003 declared that the orders of the Tribunal are erroneous and illegal. Against the said orders, the State Government filed S.L.P.Nos.5869-5998 of 2004 before the Supreme Court and the same was dismissed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court on 27.07.2004.

(b) Instead of honouring the judgments of the High Court and Apex Court with an intention to deny the benefit of G.O.Ms.No.330 Education, dated 10.08.1983, the State Government have enacted law called Andhra Pradesh Language Pandits Grade-II (Regulation of Scale of Pay) Act, 2005 known as Act 1 of 2005, dated 11.01.2005.

(c) In view of the fact that the petitioner was appointed as Grade-II on 01.08.1979, much prior to the cut of date i.e. 12.03.1982 specified in G.O.Ms.No.330. The petitioner will fall within the ambit of the said GO and any subsequent orders are not applicable to the petitioner. The petitioner received the benefits of Grade-I scale from the year 1983 onwards and after 22 years by applying the enactment of Act 1 of 2005 amounts were recovered from petitioner’s pensionary benefits at once in lump sum. The respondent authority not only recovered amount of Rs.4,21,773/- from the petitioner’s pensionary benefits, the petitioner last pay was also reduced from Rs.36,700/-to Rs.29,950/-. Aggrieved by the same, the petitioner approached this Court by filing the present writ petition seeking the following reliefs :

“(a) to declare the action of the respondents in stepping down the petitioners pay in Grade-II from 1983 as per Act 1 of 2005 is illegal, arbitrary and violative of Articles 14, 16, 21 and 300 A of the Constitution of India and consequently declare that the petitioner is entitled all pension and pensionary benefits basing on the last pay drawn i.e. Rs.36,700/-.

(b) to declare further that the action of the respondent authorities in recovering the amount of Rs.4,21,773/- from the petitioner which were already and actually paid by the Government itself in terms of G.O.Ms.No.330 Education, dated 10.08.1983 as being illegal, arbitrary and contrary to the judgment reported in 2010(4) ALT 145 (FB) and consequently direct the respondent to refund the said recovered amount to the petitioner.

(c) to grant such other relief or reliefs as this Hon’ble Court deems fit and proper in the circumstances of the case.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the issue in the present case is squarely covered by various judgments and c