CWP No.1702 of 2024, titled Ashwani Kumar
versus State of Himachal Pradesh & Others, on
25.07.2024, whereby in similar fact-situation relating
to the employees who were Technicians as in this
of
case, the recovery was quashed and pursuant to the
filing of Execution Petition No.394 of 2025, titled
rt
Ashwani Kumar versus State of Himachal Pradesh
& Others, the State Authorities have admitted that
ACP benefits or higher pay was wrongly given by
mistake of Department and there was no
misrepresentation by the employees and therefore, it
was not a fit case to file SLP or any other proceedings
in the matter.
11(vii). Deprecating the recovery of the financial
benefits extended due to wrong interpretation/
understanding of a Rule or Order, the Hon'ble
Supreme Court in Thomas Daniel vs State of
Kerala and Others, 2022 SCC OnLine SC 536,
of
has held the following terms :-
Since the petitioner was not a party to wrong
pay-fixation; but the higher pay was granted
erroneously due to wrong interpretation of
Rules/Schemes by the State Authorities, then
the recovery dated 21.02.2019 of the amount
of higher pay disbursed to petitioner due to
wrong application of Rules/Schemes by
respondents beyond five years from 2013 to
2018; then also, the recovery cannot be
effected being contrary to the mandate in Para
18(iii), in the case of Rafiq Masih [supra].
"46.... The legislature however is free to
recognise the degree of harm or evil
and to make provisions for the
same. Making dissimilar provisions
of
for one group of public sector
undertakings does not per se make
a law discriminatory as such. It is
well-settled that courts will not
rt sit as superlegislature and strike
down
a particular classification on the
ground that any under-inclusion,
namely, that some others have
been left untouched so long as
there is no violation of
constitutional restraints...... The
same principle was reiterated by
this Court in the case of State of
Gujarat v. Shri Ambica Mills Ltd.,
Ahmedabad [1974 (3) SCR 760]. In
that case, this Court was of the
view that in the matter of economic
legislation or reform, a provision
would not be struck down on the
vice of under-inclusion, inter alia,
for the reason that the legislature
could not be required to impose
upon administrative agencies task
which could not be carried out or
which must be carried out on a
large scale at a single stroke.
It was further reiterated that piece
meal approach to a general problem
permitted by under-inclusive
classific-ations, is sometimes
justified when it is considered that
legislatures deal with such
problems usually on an
experimental basis. It is impossible
to tell how successful a particular
approach might be, what
dislocation might occur, and what