Bilaspur. The Chhattisgarh High Court has cancelled the recovery order issued against Dhaneshwari Ratre, the widow of Police Inspector Malikram Ratre. In fact, after the death of Inspector Malikram Ratre posted in Janjgir-Champa Police Department, an order was issued by the Superintendent of Police (SP) Janjgir-Champa to recover about two lakh rupees from the retirement bill of his wife Dhaneshwari Ratre, revising the excess payment made due to wrong salary fixation during his service period from 27 December 1986 to 30 November 2018.
Against this recovery order, Dhaneshwari Ratre filed a writ petition in the High Court Bilaspur, in which her advocates Abhishek Pandey and Devanshi Chakraborty argued that on the basis of the decisions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, such as State of Punjab vs. Rafiq Masih (2015) and Thomas Daniel vs. State of Kerala (2022) as well as the decision given by the Division Bench of High Court Bilaspur in the case of Chhattisgarh Government and others vs. Labharam Dhruv, such recovery cannot be made from any third class employee, retired employee or their family members.
The advocates also argued before the court that it is not justified to issue a recovery order from the government employee after his retirement or from his widow or any other family member after his death, citing excess payment of salary during his service period.
After hearing the writ petition, the Bilaspur High Court agreed with the arguments of the advocates and citing the earlier decisions of the Supreme Court and High Court Bilaspur, cancelled the recovery order issued by the Superintendent of Police, Janjgir-Champa. Also, the court directed the Superintendent of Police to immediately return the recovered amount to the petitioner Dhaneshwari Ratre.
