No recovery from retiral dues of employees permissible; speaking orders mandatory for pay refixation.

ORDER

Per : Hon’ble Sh. Umesh Gajankush, Member (J)

The present OA has been filed by the applicant with the following reliefs :

“A(i) The decision of the respondent No.3 at Annexure A/1 order dated 25.03.2015 letter No.GJT/DOT Cell/15/3/16510 communicated to the applicant by the office of the respondent No.4 under Right to Information Act vide Forwarding letter dated 17^th August, 2016 letter No.Q4229/PEN/ICP/AO (C ) Nadiad 16-17/67, A(ii) The decision of the respondent No.4 vide letter dated 22.7.2016 at Annexure A/2 whereby withdrawing the higher grade of pay granted to the applicant in the year 1999 and effecting recovery from the retiral dues and thereby fixing less pension, A(iii) Communication of the respondent No.4 dated 11.07.2017 letter No.KTD/Legal/ OA/137/2017/ICP/2017-18/7 along with letter dated 01.06.2017 letter No.Q-4227/PEN/ICP/17 of the accounts office Nadiad upholding the re-fixztion and illegal recovery of the applicant rejecting the representations dated 28.07.2016 and 10.10.2016 of the applicant at Annexure A/3. A(iv) The decision of the respondent No.3 dated 28.7.2017 letter No.GJT/DOT-CELL/15/3/16510 at Annexure A/4 reiterating the same decision after direction in OA No.137/2017 as illegal, unjust arbitrary and violative of Articles 14, 16 & 21 of the Constitution of India.

B. Be pleased to quash and set aside the impugned decisions at Annexure A/1 to A/4 as above and direct the respondents to refund the amount of leave encashment which is illegally recovered from the retiral dues of the applicant and re-fix the pension of the applicant as if no impugned orders were ever passed against the applicant.

C. Be pleased to declare the unilateral impugned decision of the respondents withdrawing the higher pay granted to the applicant from retrospective date i.e. 01.08.1999 adversely effecting the pay and retiral dues of the applicant without following due procedure of law as illegal, unjust, arbitrary and in violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India and be pleased to quash and set aside the same.

D. Be pleased to declare that the respondents have illegally fixed less pension of the applicant and direct the respondents to fix the same according to last pay drawn by the applicant and pay the amount of arrears accordingly along with the interest.

E. Be pleased to declare that the respondent No.2 had acted contrary to the settled principle of law by the Hon’ble Supreme Court and unilaterally decided to reduce pay of applicant and recovered the amount of Rs.1,14,082/- from the retiral dues of the applicant illegally and set aside the same and direct the respondent Nos.2 & 3 to restore pay position of applicant and refund the amount with interest and further recover special cost and compensation from the erring officer and direct the respondents to continue the applicant to pay pensionary benefits as per the last pay drawn by the applicant.

F. Any other and further relief as this Hon’ble Tribunal may deem fit and proper be granted.”

2. The brief facts of the case are that the applicant was appointed as Time Scale Clerk w.e.f. 21.08.1979 by the Respondent Department and posted at Anand. On 21.08.1995, the applicant was granted the benefits of the First Time Bound Promotion on completion of 16 years w.e.f. 21.08.1995 and was promoted as Sr. TOA in 1991. In October, 2000, the applicant was placed in the restructured cadre in the scale of Rs.5000-150-8000 w.e.f. 01.08.1999 at pay of Rs.5300/-. Subsequently, as per the Memo dated October, 2000, the pay of the applicant was fixed at Rs.5450/- along with all