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Fatwa CenterResorting to trickery to recover one's lawful rights
Question
I was a manager at a company and was sent money by the owner for expenses and salaries of other employees working, and I used to pay them but he used to pay me less from the required money,so for example the required money was 7 Lakh for a particular month, he used to send 690000,so I used to pay 10000 from my salary,I did let the owner know about this but he used to say put the rest in next month's sheet and I'll pay you u next month, but same thing used to happen next month so to recover the money and to make sure I dont loose money I added some money in an employee's salary just included 1000 or 2000 in their basic salary so I dont pay from my salary, so for example an employee's salary that I set with the employee was 10000 I sent in a request of 12000 to the owner, so I would save 2000 and try to recover the money, the owner never listened to me and always used to pay me less so when I added the amount and he paid me less it didnt affect me, as the request made was 7 Lakh 20 thousand,the actual requirement was 7 Lakh 10 thousand and he used to pay 7 Lakh 7 or 9 Thousand I didnt loose that much money, now after a year the owner got to know that I used to do this and he terminated me without hearing my explanation, he even didnt pay me the last month's salary and also he told the employees that I used to request more salary for them,for example an employee was told that your salary has been 12000 but I used to pay him 10000 (now when I hired him I set his salary as 10000 but requested 12000 from the owner because of the reasons above) please tell me if I owe him money as he now thinks that his salary was 12000, if I am liable to him I will pay him whatever I requested more, but before providing an answer please think that I used to spend that money requested more on expenses for the company.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His Slave and Messenger.
If you did not take any extra money from the employer aside from your rightful salary, you are not obliged to pay him anything. However, if the extra money you took from your employer by means of this trick is more than what you could claim from him in addition to your last salary which he has not given you, then you are obliged to repay the extra money to him even if in an indirect way. This is as far as clearing your liability is concerned.
As for the permissibility of resorting to such a trick to recover one's rights, you should know that the basic principle is that rights should be recovered in the known lawful means as far as possible. However, if the wronged person cannot take back his rights except by means of trickery, he is entitled to do so as long as he recovers only his right and nothing more, as a group of the scholars has stated.
Al-Qurtubi 
said,
“The correct view is that it is permissible (to resort to trickery to recover one's rights) as long as it is not considered thievery. This is the opinion adopted by Ash-Shaafiʻi, and Ad-Daawoodi reported it on the authority of Maalik. It is also the view adopted by Ibn Al-Munthir and preferred by Ibn Al-ʻArabi. This act is not considered betrayal but is rather a means to recover one's rights.” [Tafseer Al-Qurtubi]
Allaah Knows best.
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