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CHAPTER
X ARREARS
CLAIMS AND RECOVERIES OF OVERPAYMENTS 1001.
A—Arrear claims of Railway servants General.
All petty arrears claims other than those which affect railway servant's
pension gratuity or special contribution to Provident Fund, all claims for
whose delayed submission an adequate explanation is not forthcoming and
all claims preferred after the expiry of the period prescribed for the
preservation of records for their verification, should be rejected. 1002.
To enable the competent authority to decide whether investigation
and payment of arrear claims may be sanctioned in individual cases, it is
necessary to indicate in each case the total amount of arrear claim
together with the salary of the railway servant concerned to assess
whether the claim is to be treated as petty or not.
Reasons for the delay in Submission of the claims should be
furnished to enable the sanctioning authority to decide whether these
reasons are satisfactory. 1003.
There is no yardstick as to what should be regarded as a petty
claim, but as a general rule, if a claim amounts to less than Rs. 10 and
relates to a period earlier than one year from the date it is submitted to
the proper authority, or comes to notice, it should be regarded as petty
and not action should ordinarily be taken regarding the payment of the
arrears. From the date the discrepancy has been brought to notice, or has
come to light, the correct amounts should, however, be drawn where due. 1004.
Paragraph 1021 of the Indian Railway Administration and Finance
authorities the General Manager or any other authority to whom the power
may be delegated by the President to sanction an investigation of arrear
claims of persons appointed by him in the following cases, i.e. The date from which due shall be the date of administrative order issued pursuant to directions/orders of the court. Tribunal etc. or the date of administrative orders issued pursuant to the decision of the competent authority on a representation received from the affected employee or his/her representative etc. as the case may be leading to claim for payment of arrears. (Authority- Railway Board’s letter No. E (G) 2014/A1/1-20 dated 27.06.2018) (i) when the claim is not over three years old from the date it becomes due, irrespective of the amount involved, and (Railway Board Letter No:- E(G)AL1-31 dated 19-1-1993) (ii)
when the claim is over three years old reckoned as above, but the amount
of the claim pertaining to the period beyond three years does not exceed
Rs. 10,000/- (Railway Board Letter No:- E(G)2009 AL 1/16 dated 06.01.2010) 1005.
In cases where the amount of the claim for the period beyond three
years exceeds Rs. 10,000/- investigation of the portion within the three
years' limit may be sanctioned by the General Manager and the question of
sanction of the balance only, i.e. portion beyond three years should be
referred to the Railway Board for orders. 1006.
Subject to the conditions stated in paragraph 1004 above and to any
further conditions which he may consider necessary, the General Manager
may delegate his powers to authorities subordinate to him in respect of
claims which are not more than three years old. 1007.
The orders continued in this section do not apply to cases of— (i)
gratuity/special contribution to provident
fund, and (ii)
claims for the payment of amounts placed under the head "Deposit Unpaid Wages". 1008.
The powers to sanction the investigation and payment of arrear
claims vested in the General Manager or in the lower authorities to whom
powers may have been delegated should be exercised in consult with the
Finance Officer concerned. 1009.
Claims of railway servants, whether gazetted or not, to arrears of
pay and allowances or to increments which have been allowed to remain in
abeyance for a period exceeding one year, cannot be investigated by the
Accounts Officer on his own authority. 1010.In
rejecting arrear claim of petty amounts in the case of railway servants
governed by the Payment of Wages Act, the provisions of section 15(2) of
the Act reproduced below should be kept in view :— "15(2).
Where contrary to the provisions of this Act, any deduction has been made
from the wages of an employed person, or any payment of wages has been
lalayed, such person himself or any legal practitioner or any official of
a Registered Trade Union authorized in writing to act of his behalf, or
any Inspector under this Act, or any other person acting with the
permission of the authority appointed under sub-section (1), may apply to
such authority for direction under sub-section (3); Provided that every such application shall be presented within six months from the date of which the deduction from the wages was made, or from the date on which the payment of wages was due to be made, as the case may be; Provided
further that any application may be admitted after the said period of six
months when the applicant satisfies the authority that he had sufficient
cause for not making an application within such period. 1011.
Claims regarding re-fixation of pay with retrospective effect.—Unless
specially stated otherwise, all orders refixing the pay of a railway
servant take effect from the date of issue. No arrears of pay in
such cases are generally permissible. 1012.
Claims regarding travelling allowance.—Where a railway servant is
promoted or reverted or is granted an increased rate of pay with
retrospective effect, no revision of claims for travelling allowance
already settled is permissible in respect of the period intervening
between the date of promotion of grant of increased rate of pay and that
on which it is notified, unless it is clear that there has been an actual
change of duties. Note
: In the case of late authorisation/drawal of increments with
retrospective effect, other than those where increments were
withheld or where the increments take an officer above the stage of
efficiency bar, there is no objection to the supplementary claims relating
to Traveling Allowance, if any being admitted, on the basis of the
enhanced pay including the increments. 1013.
B—RECOVERIES OF OVERPAYMENTS All
personal claims will normally be checked finally within one year of the
date of payment, and if within this period an amount is discovered to have
been paid erroneously through an oversight in the Accounts Officer and not
due to wrong interpretation of a rule or order it will ordinarily be
recovered. When the amount so deducted can, without hardship to the party
concerned, be recovered from a current bill, the recovery will be made by
the Accounts Officer from such bill. If, however, the amount discovered to
have been erroneously paid cannot be met from the amount payable in the
current bill or is so large as compared with the person's pay that its
recovery is, in the opinion of the Financial Adviser and Chief Accounts
Officer, likely to cause hardship to the railway servant concerned, the
amount will be held under objection
and the drawing officer requested to take steps to recover the amount from
the next bill or to obtain the sanction of the Head of the Department,
Deputy Head of the Department, Divisional Railway Manager, Deputy Chief
Mechanical Engineer or Works Manager in independent charge of workshops,
as the case may be, to the recovery being made in a suitable
number of
installments Note
: Overpayment made to an employee on account of excess leave granted due
to irregular postings in the leave accounts should be recovered from
him/her in cash or excess leave allowed in the past, set off with the
consent of the employee against future credits of leave earned by him/her.
The amounts excess paid to the staff in such circumstances should not be
written off in any case. 1014.
An erroneous payment may be either due to a wrong interpretation of
financial rules or to oversight. The following procedure should be
observed in regard to either :— (a) when a wrong interpretation of a financial rule has been followed in an Accounts Office, the new interpretation should be given effect to from the date which the competent authority may decide when giving the correct interpretation. If no date is specifically fixed, the correct interpretation should be given effect to from the date it is stated by the competent authority; and (b)
when erroneous payments have been passed through oversight in the
Accounts Office, payments made less than twelve months ago should be
recovered and orders of competent authority obtained with regard to
previous overpayments. 1015.
Every Railway Officer should attend promptly to any objection
communicated to him by the Accounts Officer and all objections relating to
personal claims revised by the Accounts Officer or by the Audit
Department, whether accepted or not, should immediately be communicated to
the parties concerned so that the question of write-off of the amounts on
the ground that they are more than a year old, may not arise in case it is
eventually decided that the objections are correct and the amounts
disallowed are to be recovered. 1016.
Recovery of overpayments made to railway servants by drawing and
disbursing officers may be waived only after the strictest possible
scrutiny and only if there is fullest justification for such waiver, which
should be placed on record. Normally,
no recoverable overpayment should be waited.
But waiver may be justified if overpayment has occurred over
long periods and the amount involved is very large compared, and, where it
would require many years to recover the amount, it may be held that by
Gripping the resources of a comparatively lowpaid individual over a large
number of years, his efficiency would considerably suffer and thereby the
indirect loss to the Railway by the loss of his efficiency might be more
than the loss to the Railway caused by writing off the recovery of the
overpayment. The nature of the irregularity will also be an important
consideration. The element of discretion, therefore, should be judiciously
exercised and waiver should not be accorded merely on the ground that
over payments were drawn in good faith and are over one year old. 1017.
Recovery should not ordinarily be waived in cases where— (i)
the recovery relates to a gazetted railway servant, or ii)
where the amount involved does not exceed two months pay of the railway
servant concerned. The
Railway Board have full powers to sanction the write-off of amounts
overdrawn by railway servants or otherwise due from them. The General
Managers may exercise the powers of the Railway Board under this paragraph
in respect of non-gazetted railway servants. In the case of gazetted
railway servants, the General Manager may waive recovery of amounts
overdrawn by them or otherwise due from them if the erroneous payment or
the amount due is discovered by Accounts or Audit more than one year after
the date on which it was made or on which it was due. The General Manager
may redelegate his powers under this paragraph to any authority
subordinate to him subject to such conditions as he may deem fit to
prescribe. Note
: In cases where an amount due from a person has to be written off on the
ground than he/she is no longer in railway service and no recovery is,
therefore, possible the orders sanctioning write off should invariably
contain a clause that any sums which are subsequently found due to the
person concerned will be adjusted against the amounts written off. 1018.
The powers to waive recoveries of overpayment may be exercised
whether the transactions are pre-checked or post-checked or whether the
irregularity has come to notice in the course of internal check or has
been brought to notice by Audit. 1019.
When any overpayments are made to railway servants, these arc
generally recovered in instalment with a view to mitigating hardship to
them. In the case of railway servants due to retire on account
of superannuation, the recoveries of overpayments should be spread
in such a manner that the recoupment in full is made within the period
available. In cases
where railway servant retire on account of permanent in capacity due to
bodily or mental infirmity, the outstanding amount should be made good by
them before retirement and the balance, if any, should be recovered from
the settlement dues at the time of payment. 1020.
C—PAYMENT OF SETTLEMENT DUES FROM STATION EARNINGS Sub-Section
(2) of Section 5 of the Payment of Wages Act requires that where the
employment of any person is terminated by or on behalf of the employer the
wages earned by him shall be paid before the expiry of the second working
day from the day on which his employment is terminated. This provision
covers both permanent and temporary railway servants including
substitutes. 1021.
In accordance with paragraph -405(ii) of the book Indian Railway
Administration and Finance, the Financial Adviser and Chief Accounts
Officer, with the prior approval of the Ministry of Railways (Railway
Board) is empowered to employ a system in which cash receipt at stations
may be utilised to a limited extent for the payment of expenditure of the
railway (e.g. payment of claims for compensation for goods lost or
damaged, disbursement of
pay and traveling
allowances with a view to accelerate payment of such charges, payment of
wages in certain specified cases under the Payment of Wages Act). 1022.
The following procedure is laid down to expedite the payment of wages to
discharged labour, purely for guidence. Details of procedure suited to the
requirements of each railway may be worked out in consultation with the Financial Adviser and Chief Accounts
Officers. 1023.
Withdrawal from station earnings should be permitted only in the
case of payments to substitutes and temporary railway servants who are
discharged during the wage period and are required to be paid within two
working days of their discharge under the Payment of Wages Act. 1024.
If such railway servants happen to work at the
Divisional/Workshop/Railway
Headquarters where the Accounts Office concerned is situated, or
where it is possible to arrange payment in time, payment should be made in
the usual manner, i.e. only after recheck by the Accounts Office concerned
and through the Pay Master. 1025.
The settlement pay-sheets should be prepared in triplicate in the
standard form and should invariably contain a reference to the sanction on
the authority of which the staff in question was employed, the period of
currency of the sanction and the rate of pay allowed in each case. In case
no sanction is available, the bill-preparing authority must
quote reference to the substitute statement submitted by it to the
Divisional Officer or the Divisional Headquarters authority for its formal
approval and also attach a copy thereof with the settlement pay-sheet. The
bill should also indicate the date up to which and die reference to salary
bill or muster-sheet through
which the wages were drawn during the month and the head of account to
which the amount is to be
allocated. The bill
will then be endorsed as follows
: — To Fay
from station earnings. Signature____________________ Designation__________________ Stamp
of Office______________ Date_______________________ 1026.
The senior supervisor under whom the staff are working at the time of
discharge will have the amount paid in his presence at the station after
taking the signature or thumb impressions of the payees on the pay-sheets.
No payment should be made at any point or points away from the station
premises. After the payment has been made, the senior supervisor concerned
will record the following certificate on the salary bill or muster sheet
:— "No.___________________
paid in my presence No._____________________Did
not turn up for payment. Signature________________ Designation_______________ Date_____________________ The
Station Master will also endorse a certificate as under :— "A
sum of Rs. _________________has been paid by me from station earnings on
date. The senior supervisor presenting the salary bill/muster sheet is
Shri _______________________Designation _______________and is known to me. Signature--------------------- Designation------------------ Stamp
of Office—------------ Date--------------- 1027.
When the Station Master himself is to make payment to discharged
temporary substitutes of casual labor appointed by him, he shall withdraw
the money required from the Chief Booking Clerk/Goods Clerk and proceed in
the manner indicated in paragraphs 1028.
The Station Master or the Chief Booking Clerk or Goods Clerk
should, after the close of the payment and the recording of the
certificate of payment, take possession of the original paid voucher or
sheet and send the sheet or sheets as a cash voucher for the net amount
actually paid along with
the collected cash for the day, to the Cashier concerned. The
other copies of the pay sheet will be handed over to the official
witnessing payments, who will keep the office copy with him and forward
the third copy immediately to the Divisional Officer concerned. 1029.
In all cases where it is proposed to make payment from station
earnings at a station, the senior supervisor concerned will sen da
telegraphic advice in advance to his immediate gazetted officer as also to
the Accounts Officer concerned and they will, as far as possible, arrange
for the payment being witnessed by responsible assistance
working under
them. 1030. After the payment from station earnings has been arranged, the senior supervisor should immediately take down an extract of all unpaid items, if any, from the muster-sheet or salary bill. He will subsequently prepare a supplementary muster-sheet or salary bill in respect of the unpaid items and submit the same to the Divisional Headquarters through the usual channel for pre-check by the Accounts Office and arranging payment. The following certificate shall be recorded by the senior supervisor on the supplementary muster-sheet or salary bill--- "Certified
that the staff in whose favor salary/wages have been charged herein could
not be paid when their payment was in the first instance, arranged, Vide
No.---------------- dated ------- from station earning on......................
--------------------at station. Signature----------------------- Designation--------------------- Date-----------------------
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