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In the present case, the declaration of the petitioner was as follows:-

"I do hereby agree that the payments of the monthly bills and arrear pay bills drawn in the revised scale of pay are 'Provisional' and are subject to subsequent adjustment and that the over-drawals, if any, in this regard be recovered forthwith from my salary bill" (emphasis is mine).
The form of declaration clearly means that even at the highest, recovery of excess payment could be made by the State from the salary bill of the petitioner during the tenure of his service. In my opinion, such a declaration would not entitle the State to recover any over-drawals from the pensionary benefits of the petitioner. Pensionary benefits are paid to a superannuated person by way of social welfare measure to enable him to live a life of dignity which is now recognized as a fundamental right of a citizen of India. Retiral benefits are not to be lightly interfered with. Any right of the employer to recover from the pensionary benefits of an employee any excess payment received by the employee due to no fault, fraud or misrepresentation on his part is to be strictly construed. Of course, it will be a different thing altogether if the employee has fraudulently induced the employer to make the excess payment. In such a case the employer's right to recover the excess payment from the pensionary benefits of the employee cannot be doubted since fraud unravels everything. It has not been argued on behalf of the State that the petitioner in the present case has received excess payment by practising fraud or making misrepresentation nor that the petitioner was conscious that he was receiving more that he was entitled to. Moreover, it is common knowledge that such declarations are signed by an employee under compelling circumstances with no real choice in the matter. As a Learned Judge observed in one case, the choice is like choosing between the devil and the deep sea. I also draw support from the decision of a Division Bench of this Court in the Court of Asitosh Bhattacharya-vs.-The State of West Bengal, (2015) 2 CLT 339, in which the Hon'ble Division Bench considered the decisions in Shyam Babu Verma (supra), Syed Abdul Qadir (Supra), Chandi Prasad Uniyal (supra) and Rafiq Masih (supra) and held that no recovery can be made from a retired employee who is due to retire within one year from the order of recovery.