A.K.SIKRI, J. - (1.) THE petitioner herein, namely, Central Silk Board which comes under the administrative control of Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, initially adopted the A.C.P. Scheme introduced by the Government of India w.e.f.. 09.08.1999. As per this ACP Scheme of the Government of India, two financial up-gradations on completion of 12 years and 24 years of regular services are admissible in case of Group-B, C & D employees. However, thereafter the petitioner Board chose to introduce more beneficial scheme on its own which is known as 'CSB-ACP Scheme' w.e.f. 01.09.2007. This scheme was floated and the employees were asked to give the options. The respondents herein, who are eight in number gave their options and they were given the benefits, under the CSB-ACP Scheme on the basis of their options. It so happened that the aforesaid scheme of the Board did not get approval from the Administrative Ministry. The question in these circumstances which arose is as to whether the Board could go ahead with its own scheme or it was to adhere to the earlier ACP Scheme of the Government of India.
(2.) THE Advocate General gave the opinion that the procedure followed by the Board in introduction of its own scheme was not appropriate as the approval of the Administrative Ministry was not taken. On the basis of this opinion the scheme has been withdrawn and the Board reverted to the earlier ACP Scheme of the Government of India. This action was challenged by the respondents herein by filing O.A. before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench (Circuit at Jammu). The Tribunal in the impugned order while holding that under the aforesaid circumstances the petitioner herein was well advised to withdraw the scheme and this action was perfectly legal and valid, by the same time it is also held in para No. 8 of the judgment that the amounts already paid under the CSB-ACP Scheme should not be recovered. Para No. 8 of the impugned judgment reads as under:- "8. As far as the recovery is concerned, the same may not be effected since it was not due to the fault of the applicants that their pay had been fixed at a higher stage under the CSB-ACP Scheme. The present petition is that the ACP scheme of 9.8.1999 would be applicable to the applicants from the date upto the date of introduction of MACP Scheme. Under this broad application of schemes, the respondents would obviously be at liberty of refix the pay of the applicants in accordance with the same. Therefore, the impugned action of the respondents is upheld but no recovery may be made of the excess amount already paid to the applicants."
(3.) THE Board has challenged this part of the order as it is submitted that if amount was wrongly paid it has a right to recover. On the facts of this case we are not impressed with this submission of learned counsel for the petitioners. It is clear from the aforesaid narration of facts that if at all it was the fault of the Board itself in introducing the scheme without completion of appropriate procedure, in so far as the employees are concerned they have nothing to respond to the scheme which was introduced by the Board itself. On our query to the learned counsel for the petitioners we are informed that the amount paid approximately may be Rs. 50,000.00 to each employee. Thus from eight employees the amount in question would be approximately Rs. 4,00,000.00. For all these reasons, we are not inclined to interfere with the discretionary order passed by the Tribunal on this aspect, in exercise of our extra ordinary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Dismissed.;