The Lt. Governor v. Yohannan Sajeevan

26.07.2021 SL No.1 Court No.16 (gc) (Circuit Bench at Port Blair) (Via Video Conference) WPCT 170 of 2021 The Lieutenant Governor, A & N Islands & Ors. Vs.

Yohannan Sajeevan Mr. Krishna Rao, Ld. G.P., Mr. Surajit Samanta, ...for the Petitioners.

Mr. Deep Chaim Kabir, Mr. S. Ajith Prasad, Mr. Mazhar Hossain Chowdhury, Md. Zeeshan Uddin, Mr. Suman Karmakar, ...for the Respondent.

The petitioners are aggrieved by the order dated 25th June, 2021 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Calcutta Bench, Kolkata in O.A./351/868/AN/2021 where all fifty five workers who have challenged the authority of the administration to recover a sum of Rs.1.42 crores on the ground that the overpayments made to them as alleged by the administration were due to alleged mistake or oversight of the administration and the original applicants are in no way responsible for the benefit alleged to have been extended to the original applicants. It was the specific allegation of the original applicants before the learned Tribunal that all the original applicants had drawn H.R.A. since 2007 and there was no fraud or misrepresentation on their part. The learned Tribunal relied upon Syed Abdul Quadir & Ors. Vs. State of Bihar & Ors. reported at

(2009) 3 SCC 475 on which reliance was also placed by the learned Counsel representing the original applicants was of the prima facie opinion that the Circular dated 15th July, 2021 was issued by the administration to retrospectively nullify the effect of paragraph 3 of the Circular dated 9th May, 2007 thereby authorizing the administration to recover excess amount alleged to have been paid towards H.R.A. cannot be recovered. However, the matter was fixed on 25th June, 2021 for further orders. This order has been challenged by the administration in this writ petition. It is submitted that prior to the order dated 25th June, 2021, recoveries have been made in terms of the Circular dated 26th February, 2021.

In order to avoid any future controversy in this matter, we restrain the administration from recovering any amount relying upon the Circular dated 26th February, 2021 till this matter is disposed of by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Calcutta Bench. Any amount, if recovered, prior to the aforesaid order shall abide by the result of the O.A./351/868/AN/2021. We make it clear that we have not gone into the merits of the matter and we decline to interfere with the order passed by the Tribunal as we are of the view that the original applicants were able to make out a strong prima facie case in their favour. The Tribunal while disposing of the matter shall also take into consideration the subsequent decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in State of Punjab & Ors. Vs. Rafiq Masih (White Washer) & Ors.

reported at (2015) 4 SCC 334, State of Punjab & Ors. Vs. Rafiq Masih (White Washer) reported at (2014) 8 SCC 883 and High Court of Punjab & Haryana Vs. Jagdev Singh reported at (2016) 14 SCC 267 in deciding the said application.

We request the learned Tribunal to dispose of the main application as expeditiously as possible without granting any adjournment to either of the parties unless there are unavoidable reasons and subject to maintaining Covid Protocol.

With the aforesaid observation, the writ petition being WPCT 170 of 2021 stands disposed of.

All parties shall act on the server copies of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. (Hiranmay Bhattacharyya, J.) (Soumen Sen, J.)