ORDER : In all the aforesaid writ petitions, since same relief was sought for, all the writ petitions were heard together and order was reserved. 2. In all the writ petitions, petitioners were initially appointed as Assistant Teacher on compassionate ground, as per recommendation made by District Compassionate Committee, Madhubani. Petitioners have prayed for quashing of order dated 20-04-2011 passed by the District Superintendent of Education, Madhubani by different memo nos. By the said order, the District Superintendent of Education has directed to recover the excess paid amount to the petitioners, which was to be recovered at the rate of Rs. 2,000/- per month from their salary. In respect of some of petitioners, recovery to the extent of Rs. 20,000/- was made, however; in some cases, recovery could not be made. The detail of the cases will be indicated hereinafter. 3. In the 1st case i.e. C.W.J.C. No. 15885 of 2011 (Anil Kumar vs. The State of Bihar & Ors.), since counter affidavit was filed on behalf of respondents, same was taken as lead case. 4. Short fact of the case in C.W.J.C. No. 15885 of 2011 is that the District Compassionate Committee, Madhubani recommended for appointing the petitioner on compassionate ground as Assistant Teacher. Accordingly, the District Education Establishment Committee, Madhubani, in its meeting held on 27-11-2001, decided to appoint the petitioner as Assistant Teacher. Subsequently, the District Superintendent of Education, Madhubani, vide letter no. 4074 dated 27-11-2001, appointed the petitioner as Assistant Teacher, who joined on 03-12-2001. The petitioner thereafter was sent for training during his service period and finally, he was relieved by the Principal of Primary Teachers Training College at Narar, Madhubani after completion of training for giving joining in his school i.e. Primary School, Sarokha, Babu Barhi, Madhubani, vide Memo dated 18-04-2007. It is case of the petitioner that he was given revised pay-scale as Rs. 4500-125- 7000/- which was fixed on 01-01-2006. The petitioner for a long period was not allowed to do his primary work of teaching, however; other work was taken by the respondents. In the meanwhile, some objections were raised by the Auditor of the office of Accountant General, Bihar. Thereafter, it was considered by the Public Account Committee and thereafter, vide order contained in letter no. The petitioner for a long period was not allowed to do his primary work of teaching, however; other work was taken by the respondents. In the meanwhile, some objections were raised by the Auditor of the office of Accountant General, Bihar. Thereafter, it was considered by the Public Account Committee and thereafter, vide order contained in letter no. 578 dated 22-06-2006, the Director, Primary Education directed to recover the amount paid in terms of salary to such teachers, who remained out of teaching work and did not perform duty of teaching. The petitioner was noticed and finally, vide order dated 18-08-2006, it was directed to recover from the salary of the petitioner as well as other similarly situated persons in installment of Rs. 2000/- per month on the plea of adjustment of unproductive expenses, in view of audit object of Accountant General, Bihar. The said order was challenged before this Court, vide C.W.J.C. No. 12086 of 2006. In the said writ petition, an interim order was passed on 18-05-2007, whereby order of recovery was directed to be stayed. The said writ petition was finally disposed of granting permission to petitioners to file representation before the District Superintendent of Education, Madhubani. The relevant portion of the order dated 11-07-2007 in C.W.J.C. No. 12086 of 2006 is as follows:- “In view of the above, the petitioners are permitted to file fresh representation before the District Superintendent of Education, Madhubani, respondent no. 6, within a period of six weeks along with the copy of the relevant documents in support of the claim as well as the certified copy of this order. Upon receipt of such representation, the respondent no. 6 shall consider and dispose of the same by a reasoned order in accordance with law, expeditiously, preferably within a period of two months on receipt of the representation. In case the representation of the petitioner finds favour, immediate necessary orders/directions shall be issued so that the grievances of the petitioner could be redressed without further delay. It is, however, directed that so long the representation of the petitioners is not finally disposed of, the interim order passed by this Court on 18th of May, 2007, whereby the operation of the order as contained in memo no. 2514 dated 18.08.2006 was directed to remain stayed, shall continue. The writ application with the above observations and directions is disposed of.” 5. 2514 dated 18.08.2006 was directed to remain stayed, shall continue. The writ application with the above observations and directions is disposed of.” 5. Thereafter, petitioners filed representations and similar other representations were filed and again, the representations of petitioners were rejected, vide order contained in Memo No. 4785 dated 08-12-2008 by the District Superintendent of Education, Madhubani. The said order was passed on 08-12-2008. The said order was again challenged before this Court by filing C.W.J.C. No. 1826 of 2009, which was heard and disposed of on 05-02-2009. It is necessary to incorporate the order dated 05-02-2009, which is as follows:- “Heard counsel for the parties. It is unfortunate that an Officer in the rank of District Superintendent of Education is not in a position to understand the order of this Court. It would really raise a question of being competent to hold such post. This Court on the earlier occasion having noticed that recovery of pay can only be made from the petitioners and other similarly situated persons if there is direct proof that the petitioners have not worked on the post as was pointed out by the Accountant General in its audit report, had remitted the matter back to the District Superintendent of Education, Madhubani to examine individual cases of the petitioners in the light of the evidence to be furnished by them and the similarly situated other persons for deciding as to whether they had really worked in the period in question. Unfortunately, even when the petitioners had adduced evidences of their working, not a word has been said about them and again a mechanical stereotyped routine order, that too in the prescribed format by only filling the name of the persons, has been passed and issued by the D.S.E.. This would only reflect the mechanical approach and/or callous attitude of the respondent District Superintendent of Education. This would only reflect the mechanical approach and/or callous attitude of the respondent District Superintendent of Education. Under such situation, this Court is constrained to again set aside the impugned order as contained in Annexure-1 and direct the District Superintendent of Education to examine individual cases of each of the petitioners and other similarly situated persons and to record finding on the basis of evidence adduced by the petitioners and other persons who were earlier subjected to order of recovery and place his comments on such individual cases before the District Education Establishment Committee which is the competent authority under the Cadre Rule to take any decision with regard to recovery of amount. That being so, this Court would direct the petitioners or any other persons similarly situated to file a fresh individual representation along with copy of order of this Court and the earlier order of this Court dated 11.7.2007 enclosing all relevant evidence of their working, whereafter the District Superintendent of Education as directed above will individually examine and submit his report thereon to the District Education Establishment Committee for taking a final decision. Till such exercise is completed, there would be no further recovery from the petitioners as was directed even in the earlier order of this Court dated 11.7.2007. This Court accordingly while remitting the matter back would direct both the District Superintendent of Education as also the District Education Establishment Committee to comply the order of this Court dated 11.7.2007 as also the present order in the letter and sprit within a period of six months from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order. With the aforementioned observation and direction this application is disposed of.” 6. After the order dated 05-02-2009 passed in C.W.J.C. No. 1826 of 2009, again the matter was considered and the District Superintendent of Education, Madhubani has passed the order on 20-04-2011. The order dated 20-04-2011 in respect of petitioner of the 1st case, it was indicated that the petitioner was posted in the district office and remained there from March, 2002 to October, 2005 and he has received Rs. 2,29,069/-, which was excess and from him, till the date of order, Rs. 20,000/- was already recovered. The remaining amount was directed to be recovered in the installment of Rs. 2000/- per month from the salary. 2,29,069/-, which was excess and from him, till the date of order, Rs. 20,000/- was already recovered. The remaining amount was directed to be recovered in the installment of Rs. 2000/- per month from the salary. The order of the District Superintendent of Education was passed, in view of decision taken in the District Education Establishment Committee dated 18-04-2011. 7. It is pertinent to mention here that in all the aforesaid writ petitions, similar order was passed on the same date i.e. 20-04-2011 under the signature of District Superintendent of Education, Madhubani. In some cases, till the date of passing of the order i.e. order dated 20-04-2011, recovery to the extent of Rs. 20,000/- was already done and in some cases, no recovery was effected. The detailed chart of the aforesaid cases are given here-in below:- Sl. No. C.W.J.C. No. Name of Petitioners Recoverable Amount Recovered Amount 1. 15885/11 Anil Kumar 2,29,069/- 20,000/- 2. 15111/11 Kamlesh Kumar 2,29,761/- 20,000/- 3. 9613/12 Kameshwar Singh 1,14,728/- 20,000/- 4. 19651/11 Md. Mahtab Alam 1,79,188/- 20,000/- 5. 19745/11 Arbind Kumar Yadav 1,90,310/- 20,000/- 6. 22782/12 (i) Pankaj Kumar Choudhary (ii) Manoj Kumar 59,709/- 1,74,821/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 7. 6128/12 Kailash Nath Jha 2,28,242/- 20,000/- 8. 23325/11 (i) Avinash Kumar Jha (ii) Ganesh Kumar Singh (iii) Jitendra Kumar Jha (iv) Pankaj Kumar Thakur (v) Gangesh Jha 1,63,071/- 1,89,556/- 1,90,367/- 1,69,511/- ……………. 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- ………… 9. 23258/11 Anil Kr. Pradhan 95,141/- Nil 10 22886/11 Sanjay Kumar Jha 2,30,877/- 20,000/- 11 22716/11 Jay Sankar Mandal 1,57,152/- 20,000/- 12 17471/11 Ashok Kumar Singh 1,57,103/- 20,000/- 13 17556/11 Dhirendra Kumar 1,79,337/- 20,000/- 14 16946/11 Jaisri Gohiwar 1,42,628/- 20,000/- 15 19369/11 Sanjay Kumar Paswan 1,43,742/- 20,000/- 16 19396/11 Manish Kumar 1,67,398/- 20,000/- 17 19878/11 Krishan Kumar Yadav 1,70,025/- 20,000/- 18 20170/11 Satish Chandra Jha 95,201/- Nil 19 20182/11 Ajit Kumar Mishra 82,618/- Nil 20 20200/11 Rudra Nath Rai 2,10,080/- 20,000/- 21 2011/13 Dhrub Krumar Jha 95,435/- Nil 22 20292/11 Sudhakar Thakur 91,023/- Nil 23 16505/11 Ram Vinod Kr. Singh 1,43,025/- 20,000/- 24 16347/11 (i) Ramesh Kr. Pandey (ii) Alok Ranjan Das (iii) Smt. Shobha Sahu 95,542/- 95,263/- 95,435/- Nil Nil Nil 25 20234/11 Md. Sanauallah 1,45,435/- Nil 26 17412/11 (i) Satish Pd. Singh (ii) Subhash Kr. Sarhan (iii) Md. Faqurddin (iv) Anil Kumar Singh (v) Md. Naushad Alam (vi) Smt. Kiran Juneza 2,29,219/- 1,70,000/- 1,79,158/- 2,11,804/- 1,91,309/- 1,72,152/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 27 14572/11 (i) Devendra Pd. Sanauallah 1,45,435/- Nil 26 17412/11 (i) Satish Pd. Singh (ii) Subhash Kr. Sarhan (iii) Md. Faqurddin (iv) Anil Kumar Singh (v) Md. Naushad Alam (vi) Smt. Kiran Juneza 2,29,219/- 1,70,000/- 1,79,158/- 2,11,804/- 1,91,309/- 1,72,152/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 27 14572/11 (i) Devendra Pd. Singh (ii) Santosh Kumar (iii) Anjani Kumar (iv) Md. Shamim (v) Shiv Narayan Singh 2,45,106/- 2,29,396/- 2,38,393/- 2,37,792/- ................. 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- 20,000/- …….. 28 16972/11 Lalan Kumar Thakur 1,70,025/- 20,000/- 8. Learned counsel for the petitioners have assailed the order impugned mainly on the ground that the petitioners though were appointed on compassionate ground, but were appointed as Assistant Teacher and as such, they were provided the pay-scale of Assistant Teacher, which was drawn by petitioners. It is specific stand of the petitioners in all the cases that they never misrepresented or misled the authority concerned for obtaining salary, which has been alleged by the respondents as excess. It has been argued that though petitioners were appointed as Assistant Teacher, but the respondents had taken many other works from them, such as; work on election duty, invigilation etc. In none of the cases, there is any allegation that petitioners voluntarily did not discharge the duty as Assistant Teacher. Once they were appointed as Assistant Teacher, whether the respondents had taken work from them as Assistant Teacher or otherwise, the respondents were not at all entitled to take a decision at subsequent stage to recover any amount from the paid salary to the petitioners on the plea that no teaching work was taken from the petitioners. It has been emphatically argued that petitioners were Class III employee and there was no allegation of misrepresentation or commission of any fraud and they had drawn salary as Assistant Teacher since they were appointed as Assistant Teacher, ofcourse on compassionate ground. Learned counsel for the petitioners have placed heavy reliance on a recent judgment of the Apex Court reported in 2015(1) PLJR(SC) 261, State of Punjab and others Vs. Rafique Masih (White Washer). It has been argued by learned counsel for petitioners that in view of Rafique Masih’s case (supra), now issue has already been set at rest. 9. Learned counsel for the petitioners have placed heavy reliance on a recent judgment of the Apex Court reported in 2015(1) PLJR(SC) 261, State of Punjab and others Vs. Rafique Masih (White Washer). It has been argued by learned counsel for petitioners that in view of Rafique Masih’s case (supra), now issue has already been set at rest. 9. Of course, aforesaid writ petitions were filed in the year 2011, but till the date on which order was reserved, in number of cases, no counter affidavit was filed on behalf of the respondents, however; in 1st case (i.e. C.W.J.C. No. 15885 of 2011), counter affidavit was filed on behalf of the respondents. Similarly, in some other cases, counter affidavit was filed, but common ground was taken that the decision was taken to recover the amount on the basis of objection raised by the office of Accountant General that it was a case of unproductive expense and as such, it was required to be recovered. A common stand has been taken that though petitioners were appointed as Assistant Teacher, for longer period they had not discharged any teaching work. However, it has been admitted that from them, work was taken in relation to election duty, invigilation etc. A plea has been taken that from the date of their appointment till their posting in their school, the petitioners had received payment, which was found to be unproductive expense and same objection was raised by the audit team of Accountant General. 10. Learned counsel for the State submits that the order impugned was passed after giving full opportunity to the petitioners to explain as to whether they had discharged duty of teaching work or not. 11. Besides hearing learned counsel for the parties, I have also perused the materials available on record. It is not in dispute that petitioners were appointed as Assistant Teacher. Whether from them teaching work was taken or not, it was responsibility of the respondent/State. It is not a case that no work was taken from the petitioners. Once, they were paid salary as Assistant Teacher on which post they were appointed, at subsequent stage, the respondents were not all authorized to take step for recovery of any amount on the plea that it was unproductive expenses. It is undisputed that petitioners had not made any misrepresentation or had committed any fraud in getting the pay-scale of Assistant Teacher. It is undisputed that petitioners had not made any misrepresentation or had committed any fraud in getting the pay-scale of Assistant Teacher. Once petitioners were appointed as Assistant Teacher, it was incumbent on the part of the respondents to take work from them as teacher. Instead of taking work as Teacher, some other work was taken from the petitioners. Moreover, Rafique Masih’s case (supra) in paragraph – 12, the Supreme Court has already laid down a law that in such cases, no recovery can been effected. At this juncture, the Court proposes to quote paragraph – 12 of Rafique Masih’s case (supra), which is as follows:- “12. It is not possible to postulate all situations of hardship, which would govern employees on the issue of recovery, where payments have mistakenly been made by the employer, in excess of their entitlement. Be that as it may, based on the decisions referred to hereinabove, we may, as a ready reference, summarise the following few situations, wherein recoveries by the employers, would be impermissible in law:- (i) Recovery from employees belonging to Class-III and Class-IV service (or Group ‘C’ and Group ‘D’ service). (ii) Recovery from retired employees, or employees who are due to retire within one year, of the order of recovery. (iii) Recovery from employees, when the excess payment has been made for a period in excess of five years, before the order of recovery is issued. (iv) Recovery in cases where an employee has wrongfully been required to discharge duties of a higher post, and has been paid accordingly, even though he should have rightfully been required to work against an inferior post. (v) In any other case, where the Court arrives at the conclusion, that recovery if made from the employee, would be iniquitous or harsh or arbitrary to such an extent, as would far out-weigh the equitable balance of the employer’s right to recover.” 12. In view of facts and circumstances of aforesaid cases, particularly the fact that petitioners had drawn salary as Assistant Teacher, as they were appointed as Assistant Teacher, it would be difficult to approve the impugned order passed in aforesaid writ petitions. In view of facts and circumstances of aforesaid cases, particularly the fact that petitioners had drawn salary as Assistant Teacher, as they were appointed as Assistant Teacher, it would be difficult to approve the impugned order passed in aforesaid writ petitions. In view of principle laid down by the Apex Court in Rafiq Masih’s case (supra), as indicated above as well as in view of the fact that petitioners being Class III employees and had drawn their salary, as Assistant Teacher, respondents may not be allowed to take any step for any recovery on the plea that it was unproductive expense. 13. Accordingly, the order dated 20-04-2011 passed by the District Superintendent of Education, Madhubani in respect of aforesaid petitioners are hereby set aside, with a direction to refund the recovered amount, which has been indicated here-inabove, to concerned petitioners from whom recovery has already been effected. The recovered amount must be refunded to concerned petitioners within a period of four months from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order. 14. All the aforesaid writ petitions are allowed.