Arrears and time barred claim
Mohammad Hussain Khan
To understand the referred rules in the contents of the circular issued by Finance Department under circular No. A/23 (08)-I-B-184, dated. 18-02-2021. I felt it necessary to define a claim, becoming of due claim, Arrears and time barred claim.
First of all let us define a claim. A claim is a demand for something that is due by virtue of right. Thus it is recognition of right. It should always be covered by sanction of competent authority. So simple to understand when a demand for something is due by virtue of right and when sanction is issued to cover it (claim). It means “becoming of due claim”. The arrears are the payments not received by due date.
Thus the date at which any order/sanction is issued by the government can be said as the date of becoming of due claim. This can be illustrated by an example here under:- Suppose a Govt. servant has been regularized in some pay scale w.e.f.
01-04-2014 and regularization orders have been issued on 23-04-2020 for the period w.e.f 01-04-2014 and the claim is submitted to treasury on 10-03-2021. This means that the claim of the arrears pertaining to period w.e.f 01-04-2014 to 28-02-2021 has been preferred within two years of becoming due and cannot be declared as time barred claim.
Many of our colleagues are head over heels in dealing with the Rules referred in the said circular issued by Finance Department and are hell bent to create hornet nest over the claimants. Let them contradistinguish the words “preferring of claim” and “period pertaining to the claim”.
By decoupling the same the two components shall perform their independent role and remain completely autonomous and unaware of each other which is the basic requisite for the application of the said rules.
Any arrears claim which is more than two years old is known as the time barred claim and not simply the “Arrear claim”. This means the claim after the period of two years of its becoming due. Such claims require proper sanction of competent authority and prior concurrence of Finance Department.
Great confusion is prevalent among some DDO’s/Treasury officers because alertness and keen observation is not being exercised towards the “date of preferring of claim” and “the period for which the claim pertains”.
This needs to be analyzed. Besides some Treasury officers are in state of sixes and sevens and conveying wrong messages whether consequential benefits be given in those cases where orders regarding release of any grade/regularization of any officer/official are silent. There is no denying the fact that when no word “notionally” is mentioned in the grade release/ regularization order how can it be treated as notionally. The pay arrears in such cases are to be billed as from the date of effect of grade release/regularization orders.
It merits a mention here that in DPC meeting held for granting insitu promotions meticulous care is required to be taken to decide whether the insitu promotion be granted either “notionally” or “monetarily”. In such cases cause of delay needs to be ascertained, whether cause of delay is attributed to Govt. servant or due to administrative lapse, responsibility needs to be fixed for late submission of such cases so that hapless Govt. servant can be saved from any monetarily loss.
(The author can be reached at Khanhussain.ang@gmail.com)
