NIA policemen to file contempt plea

Hyderabad: Despite the Central Administrative Tribunal’s stay on recovering the extra pay from the salaries of policemen of the National Investigation Agency, the money was deducted from their salaries for November.

The NIA, which investigates cases of terrorism, had issued notices to all AP officials working in the agency to return the extra money that they had received in their salaries due to an inadvertent accounting error. In some cases the amount to be recovered was as much as Rs 8 lakh.

At least 65 policemen from additional SP to constable rank were shell shocked on Friday when they were given pay slips that showed the reduced pay package and also deduction of the money to be recovered.

Employees have now decided to file a contempt petition in the CAT against the NIA. The tribunal of Justice P. Swaroop Reddy and Ranjana Chowdhary admitting the original application filed by 65 NIA policemen, issued orders on November 26 stating there shall not be any recovery from the salary of the applicants consequent to revised pay fixation until further orders.

The matter was posted for four weeks later. The Ministry of Home Affairs, NIA and regional pay accounts officer of NSG were told to file their counter arguments. Ignoring the November 26 order, the NIA has begun recovering the money. Sources in the NIA say that some of the officers have taken home loans and will have a tough time paying the EMIs. Gratuity of the retired officers who recently attained superannuation has been held up.

Peeved by the reduction in pay, several officers have applied for repatriation to their parent departments. But since the officers are on three year deputation, the agency is holding back the repatriation.

According to sources, at the time of recruitment, the agency had promised to pay around 40 per cent Dearness Allowance on the basic, instead of 24 per cent that the State, the parent department, is paying. The grade pay was also announced depending on the rank of the officer. The agency asked employees coming on deputation to opt for either state pay or central pay. All of them opted for central pay.

The basic salary of State government police officers is more than that of central agencies so they receive higher salaries with the DA added, as against those who are deputed from the central agencies. NIA now claims it has reduced the basic pay of deputed officers to correct the 'error'.

In their petition to the CAT, the employees had claimed that "persons on deputation would continue to draw the basic pay drawn by them in their parent department and other allowances admissible to the central government employees."

The employees have challenged the reduction of basic pay, stating that the scale can't be reduced.