TEJINDER SINGH O P GUPTA K P GOKHALE Vs. BHARAT PETROLEUM CORPN LIMITED:BHARAT PETROLEUM CORPN LIMITED:BHARAT PETROLEUM CORPN LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these applications under Article 32 of the Constitution are by officers called the Management Staff employed under the Respondent No. 1 and challenge in all the Writ Petitions is to the age of superannuation at 58 years. The principal ground of attack is discrimination between the clerical staff for whom the age of retirement is 60 years and the management staff in whose case such terminal point is 58 years. It is also the claim of the petitioners that in keeping with the current trend in the commercial field such age should be fixed at 60.

(2.) Each of the petitioners in Writ Petitions Nos. 15466 and 15467 of 1984 and 2745 of 1985 is a recent recruit for the management staff while each of the petitioners in the remaining cases was an employee under the Burmah Shell Oil Storage and Distributing Company of India Limited and after the take over of that Company under the Burmah Shell (Acquisition of Undertakings in India) Act, 1976, has become an officer of respondent No. 1.

(3.) In Som Prakash Rekhi v. Union of India, (1981) 2 SCR 111, this Court has held respondent No. 1 to be "State" within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution. There has, therefore, been no dispute before us that the petitioners would be entitled to invoke the protection of Article 14 in case there indeed be any discrimination.