SHANKER LAL Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition will also dispose of the connected writ petitions as it is common case between the counsel of the parties that the points raised are common and the decision in this writ petition will govern the others also.

(2.) ALL the petitioners are at present working in the Indian Audit and Accounts Department. They challenge the action of the respondent retiring them on reaching the age of 58 and maintain that the are entitled to continue upto 60 years as they are ministerial Government servants who entered Government service before 31. 3. 1938 in terms of Fundamental Rule 56 (c ). The Department however maintains that they are liable to retire on attaining the age of 58 years in terms of Fundamental Rule 56 (a ). It is this dispute which is common in all these cases, and calls for decision.

(3.) THESE Fundamental Rules were however amended in 1965 and subsequent to that the Rules at present read as under: - "f. R. 56 (a) except as otherwise provided in this rule, every Government servant shall retire on the day he attains the age of fifty-eight years. (b) A workman who is governed by these rules shall be retained in service till the day he attains the age of sixty years. (c) A ministerial Government servant who entered Government service on or before the 31st March, 1938, and held on that date - (i) a lien or a suspended lien on a permanent post, or (ii) a permanent post in a provisional substantive capacity under Cl. (d) of Rule 14 and continued to hold the same without interruption until he was confirmed in that post, shall be retained in service till the day he attains the age of sixty years. Note : For the purpose of this clause, the expression "government service" includes service rendered in a former provincial Government. "