Karnataka High Court directs Canara Bank to re-credit excess pension debited from account of pensioner's widow

The Karnataka High Court recently directed Canara Bank to re-credit excess pension of about ₹ 6,40,000 recovered by it from the account of the widow of a pensioner, observing that the bank could not deal with public money at it's whim or fancy. [Vimala Ramanath Pawar vs Senior Manager, CPPC and Ors.] .Justice M Nagaprasanna observed that although the bank could recover excess amounts from pension accounts, it has to be recovered uniformly and not in one stroke, especially from a 73-year-old widow who was depending on family pension and suffering from ailments."Though recovery of excess amount is permitted in terms of the Master Circular, which depicts uniform recovery of wrong payments made to pensioners drawing pension, that would not mean that the amount that is paid in excess is to be recovered in one stroke that too, from the petitioner who is a widow depending on family pension and is suffering from ailments at the age of 73 years. The officers of the Bank who have indulged in such callous or reckless transfer of excess pension to the account of the husband of the petitioner should be made/held accountable for such act," the Court said.In this regard, the Court noted that any amount that is deposited into the account of the husband of the petitioner is neither the money belonging to the callous officers nor the money that belonged to the husband of the petitioner. Rather, it is “public money”, the Court underlined. .The Court was hearing a plea by a woman seeking re-credit of roughly ₹6,40,000 recovered from her family pension account by Canara Bank. Her husband, who died in 2021, was an employee of the Government of Karnataka till the year 2002. On centralization of pension from March 2019, the Centralized Pension Processing Centre (CPPC) started making payments of pension to pension holders. Due to an error, the petitioner's husband was paid Rs.96,998 per month in place of ₹38,604, which resulted in excess payment of pension of ₹13,40,261 upto February 6, 2021, the date on which he died.When after her husband's death, her family pension was not processed, the petitioner wrote to the bank. She got a reply stating that excess pension was paid to her husband due to which an order of refund of ₹13,40,261 came to be passed against her.Subsequently, the bank debited about ₹6,40,000 from her pension account without communication at intermittent intervals..Advocate Yogesh Naik for the petitioner claimed that she was not aware of what the problem was but did state that if there was any excess payment to her husband, she would clear it, just not in one go. Yet, the bank did not accede and apart from having debited the amount, it was not even paying any family pension to the petitioner..On the other hand, advocate TP Muthanna for the bank refuted the claims of the petitioners and contended that she was unjustly enriched as her husband was well aware of the pension amount and would have definitely noticed the threefold increase.Stating that the excess amount was in the petitioner's husband's account because of a mistake in the CPPC, he argued that the petitioner could not contend that recovery could not be made from her account when the excess was deposited in her husband's account.Whether the petitioner was aware of the deposit or not, cannot be a ground to deny refund of the entire excess amount as it is public money, he submitted..The Court observed that the petitioner had been harassed for 7 months by the bank as without any intimation, it had put an amount of ₹5,00,000 in the petitioner's account on hold, had withdrawn ₹2,00,000, and had stopped paying family pension."In this manner, the Bank has harassed the petitioner for 7 months after the death of her husband for certain act that she is not even aware of," the Court added..The officials of the bank who had indulged in this reckless transfer of excess pension should be held accountable for the act, it held."Pension, is trite, not a bounty or a gratis that is granted to the pensioner or the spouse of the pensioner as a family pension, for the Bank to deal with it at its whim and fancy. It is to be noticed that the husband of the petitioner is not an employee of the Bank. He has only his account in the Bank. Pension is deposited rightly in the CPPC. The State Government has not paid any excess pension to the husband of the petitioner. It is the irresponsibility of the Officers of the Bank, which has led to such over payment," the Court added.Noting that the money did not belong to the bank officials or the petitioner's husband, the court permitted recovery of the amount in equal monthly installments of ₹4,000 from the petitioner..[Read Order]