National Council (JCM) Urges Government to End Wrongful Recovery of Excess Payments from Central Government Employees

Meeting of representatives of Standing Committee Members of National Council JCM with the Secretary, Department of Expenditure on 2 July 2026 regarding recovery of wrongful / excess payment made to Govt employees

Shiva Gopal Mishra
Secretary

Ph.: 23382286
National Council (Staff Side)
Joint Consultative Machinery
for Central Government Employees
13-C, Ferozshah Road, New Delhi - 110001
E-Mail : nc.jcm.np@gmail.com

July 3, 2026

No. NC-JCM-2026/49/5/26

To

The All Members
of the Staff Side of National Council – JCM

Meeting held in the Finance Ministry under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Department of Expenditure, with the representatives of the Standing Committee Members of National Council – JCM on the subject of rationalization of the policy regarding recovery of wrongful/excess payment made to Government Employees (Sl.No.5.13, Item No.NC-49/5/26 of 49th National Council (JCM) Meeting and (dxxvii) item no. 2.2 of the 63rd Standing Committee Meeting of National Council (JCM).

Dear Comrades,

Consequent to the directions given by the Cabinet Secretary in the 49th meeting of the National Council – JCM, Secretary Department of Expenditure convened a meeting with few members of the Standing Committee of National Council -JCM on 02/07/2026 to discuss about the difficulties being faced by the Central Government employees including Retiring / Retired employees due to the illegal recovery on the plea of wrongful / excess payment in violation of the Hon'ble Supreme Court Judgment and DoPT Instructions dated 04/03/2016 and DOE instructions dated 01/04/2024. The Staff Side was represented in the meeting by Com. Shiva Gopal Mishra (Secretary Staff Side), Com. Ghuman Singh, Com. C. Srikumar, Com. Rupak Sarkar members of the Standing Committee of NC - JCM. On behalf of the Staff Side a Note was submitted to the Secretary Expenditure in which we enclosed copies of few Court Judgments delivered in favour of the employees and demanded the following:-

1. The DoP&T OM Dated.02.03.2016, should be strictly implemented by all the Ministries / Departments and its Lower formations / Units etc.,. Non-Implementation of the OM Dated.02.03.2016, should attract appropriate action.
2. Waiver of recovery of Over payment which falls under the five categories / situations given in DoP&T OM Dated.02.03.2016, up to an amount of Rupees Five Lakhs in the case of each individual may be delegated to the Head of the Department to avoid unnecessary delay in the process.
3. Waiver of recovery of over payment above Rupees Five Lakhs and up to Rupees Ten Lakhs may be delegated to the respective Ministry / Departments.
4. Waiver of recovery of over payment above Rupees Ten Lakhs only may be referred to the Department of Expenditure.
5. As and when the over payment to the individual employees is identified and if it falls within the five situations given in the DoP&T OM Dated.02.03.2016, the concerned Head of the Department without further delay inform the same to the concerned employees and then take steps for waiver of the overpayment as per the laid down procedures.
6. In the name of fixing responsibility etc., the process of waiver of recovery should not be delayed, since such excess payments are generally identified after a lapse of so many years and those officers who were dealing the cases when the excess payment was made either must have retired or transferred etc., and in many cases the documents also may not be available. Therefore, in true spirit of Supreme Court Judgment and the DoP&T OM Dated.02.03.2016, the entire process of waiver of recovery may be simplified, so that the affected employees are not subjected to any financial and mental hardship.

After submitting the Note we also put forth the following points for the consideration of the DOE and DOPT.

1. Service records of the employees are periodically Audited and approved by the Audit Authorities. The next Audit Team instead of Auditing the service record from the date of last Audit goes back to the period which was already Audited and come out with objections like excess leave granted, excess leave wages paid, wrong pay fixation or promotion /MACP, wrong promotion etc and on the basis of this the Authorities start recovering the so-called excess recovery / wrong payments from the salary of the employees and terminal benefits of the retiring employees without taking waiver action.
2. The so-called excess payments are not due to the fault of the employees and it is purely due to administrative lapses / mistakes. The employees cannot be made the victim for the mistake of the Administration.
3. Service record once audited should not be subjected to further Audit for the same period which was already Audited and found correct.
4. Incidents of recovery from the RPF Staff who are retiring / retired from Railways was also brought to the notice of the Secretary Expenditure.
5. Strict instructions should be issued to all the Ministries / Departments to adhere to the Judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of State of Punjab & Ors vs Rafiq Masik (White Washer) etc in CA No.11527 of 2014.
6. Employees & Pensioners should not be forced to approach Court for implementation of Supreme Court Judgment & Government Orders.

After discussion Secretary Expenditure assured that the proposal given by the Staff Side will be considered in consultation with DOPT and necessary guidelines in this regard will be issued. A copy of the written Note prepared by the Staff Side handed over to the Secretary (Expenditure) in the meeting is enclosed herewith for your information.

With greetings,

Yours fraternally,

(Shiva Gopal Mishra)
Secretary