Delegation of Financial Powers Rules 2024 — Rules 14 and 15, Insurance of Property and Waiver of Overpayment Recovery

1. Insurance of Government Property (Rule 14)

Rule 14 states a principle that surprises many officers new to Government service: Government property, movable and immovable, shall not be insured, and no Subordinate Authority may undertake any liability or incur expenditure connected with insuring such property, without the Finance Ministry’s previous consent — except where the Finance Ministry has itself granted a relaxation.

The underlying logic is that the Government of India, given its scale and the size of the Consolidated Fund, effectively self-insures: it can absorb the loss of any individual asset without needing to pay commercial insurance premiums year after year. Paying for insurance would, in effect, be paying a private insurer to do something the Government can do more cheaply for itself across its vast asset base. This is why insurance of Government vehicles, buildings, and equipment is the exception, not the default — and why any proposal to insure Government property needs specific Finance Ministry consent, justified on its own facts (for example, third-party liability insurance for a vehicle, which is legally mandatory and treated differently).

2. Waiver of Recovery of Overpayment — The Basic Test (Rule 15(1))

Rule 15(1) allows a Department, an Administrator, or any other Subordinate Authority specifically empowered by or under a special Presidential order, to waive recovery of an amount mistakenly overpaid to a Government servant, in excess of entitlement, but only where both of the following are true:

• The Government servant drew the excess amount under a reasonable belief that they were entitled to it — that is, there was no fraud or dishonesty on their part; and
• In the sanctioning authority’s opinion, either recovery will cause undue hardship, or recovery is simply impossible.

This is a narrow, fact-specific test. A Government servant who knew or ought reasonably to have known that an amount was not due to them cannot benefit from waiver merely because recovery would now be inconvenient.

3. The ₹2 Lakh Monetary Ceiling (Rule 15(2))

A Department of the Government of India may waive recovery of overpayment up to ₹2,00,000 per individual, with the concurrence of the Department’s Financial Adviser. Proposals for waiver of amounts exceeding ₹2,00,000 in each case must be referred to the Finance Ministry for concurrence — they cannot be decided at the Department’s own level regardless of how compelling the hardship case appears.

4. Examining the Reasons Behind the Overpayment (Rule 15(3))

Before waiving recovery, the Department must specifically examine whether the overpayment arose from fraud, misrepresentation, collusion, favouritism, negligence, or carelessness on the part of those responsible for the overpayment, and of the employee who benefited. Every waiver proposal must be accompanied by a report on this examination, duly approved by the disciplinary authority — linking the Rule 15 waiver process directly into the disciplinary/vigilance framework rather than treating it as a purely accounts-office matter.

5. Operational Guidelines — Timelines and the DoPT Checklist

The Government of India’s Decision under Rule 15 tightens the process with practical timelines and documentation requirements:

• The recovery order for an overpayment should be issued within one month of the overpayment being detected — the date of this order is a critical input for any later waiver decision.
• DoPT’s guidelines dated 02.03.2016 on categories of exemption must be strictly followed while considering waiver.
• Each waiver case must be recommended by the Financial Adviser and approved by the Administrative Secretary.
• Where waiver arises from a Court direction, the Department must satisfy itself there was appropriate justification for not having challenged that direction.
• Where the overpayment traces to an incorrect interpretation of rules or procedure, the Department should review similarly placed cases, correct the lapse, and record the action taken.

Cases above ₹2,00,000 sent to the Finance Ministry must include a detailed note and a filled-in checklist covering the employee’s name, designation, amount, reason for overpayment, date of detection, date of recovery order, date of the employee’s representation, date of disposal of that representation, the applicable DoPT exemption category, the relevant pay-fixation rule involved, whether Service Book verification was done periodically, and if not, why the wrong fixation went undetected.

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