DAITARY PATNAIK Vs. STATE OF ORISSA AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On October 17, 1973, an order of retirement in terms of Rule 71 (a) of the Orissa Service Code was made in respect of the petitioner and he was required to retire on the expiry of three months from the date of service of the said order under Annexure-2. The petitioner assails the said order in this application for a writ of certiorari.

(2.) The petitioner joined Government service on 23rd January, 1942, as a Range Clerk in a forest Range. By 1950, he came to serve as a Grade-I Assistant in the office of the Labour Commissioner. By the date of the order of retirement he was working as an Assistant Labour Commissioner. The petitioner is 54 years of age and has, on his own saying, put in more than thirty years of qualifying service. It is not disputed that Rule 71 (a) of the Orissa Service Code in terms covers his case. In the writ application, however, the order has been assailed on various grounds. Most of these are similar to the contentious advanced before this court by one Sahadev Patnaik, a Deputy Director of Fisheries of the State Government in O. J. C. No. 997 of 1973 which was directed against the order of compulsory retirement passed against him. A Division Bench of this Court examined the contentions raised in the said case at great length and rejected all of them and upheld the order of compulsory retirement. (See Sahadev Patnaik V/s. State of Orissa O. J. C. No. 997 of 1973 disposed of on 7-5-1974). The following conclusions were reached in the said decision:

(3.) Though the petitioner had challenged the order of his retirement on several grounds, in view of the conclusions indicated above in the other case, Mr. Mohapatra for the petitioner did not seriously dispute at the hearing the conclusions reached by this court on the points raised. We have been called upon to quash the order of retirement in the Instant case on the following grounds: