President directs Post Office to return Rs 1.35m to pensioner

• He gave these remarks while accepting a representation.
• Complainant said department wrongly recorded his date of birth.
• The department unjustifiably deducted in lieu of salary paid.

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has directed the Pakistan Post Office Department to pay Rs 1.35 million to a retired employee as the amount was wrongly deducted from his pensionary benefits by the Postmaster General Punjab, Lahore (the Agency) on account of a mistake in employee’s date of birth.

President said that the employee continued to serve four more years in his department after his retirement on the orders of the competent authority and had a bonafide belief of receiving the salary for the period. He added that depriving the employee of pensionary benefits and deducting the salary paid in performance of his duties was unlawful and maladministration had been established.

He gave these remarks while accepting a representation filed by Muhammad Yousaf (the complainant) against the decision of the Wafaqi Mohtasib declaring that the Agency had rightly deducted the amount from his pensionary benefits. The complainant had alleged that he served for 38 years with the Agency and he retired in 2016 but his department had wrongly recorded his date of birth due to which his retirement year was changed to 2012.

Subsequently, he overworked for additional four years but a huge amount of Rs 1.35 million was unjustifiably deducted in lieu of the salary paid to him for four years from his pensionary benefits. Feeling aggrieved, he approached the Wafaqi Mohtasib which passed the orders in the Agency’s favour. Afterwards, the complainant raised the matter with the President by filing a representation against Wafaqi Mohtasib’s decision.

President accepted the representation of the complainant and pointed out that the Agency had notified the date of retirement on superannuation of the complainant effective from May 05 2016 vide its letter dated June 04 2015 and the complainant performed his duties on the basis of said order of the Agency.

He stated that although the issue of the correct date of retirement of the employee had been settled by the Federal Service Trubunal and the Supreme Court of Pakistan, however, the issue of depriving a worker of his salary for his services rendered still remained unresolved.

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He observed that the complainant was paid for the performance of duty as ordered and he had a bonafide belief of receiving salary for the said period.