Retired people cannot claim benefit of government’s successive decision to increase retirement age: Supreme Court

Retired people cannot claim benefit of government’s successive decision to increase retirement age: Supreme Court

Explains that the state could deny the benefit due to financial and administrative considerations

The Supreme Court has rejected a plea filed by homeopathic doctors seeking retrospective implementation of the Kerala government's decision to increase the retirement age of doctors in government homeopathic colleges from 56 years to 60 years.

In the Dr. Prakasan MP And Others vs. State Of Kerala And Another case, the Bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Rajesh Bindal said that the decision was exclusively within the domain of the executive. Irrespective of the cut-off date fixed by the state, some employees would always be left out.

Explaining that the appellants could not claim the right for the implementation, the Court cleared, “That alone would not make the decision bad; nor would it be a ground for the Court to tread into policy matters, best left for the state government to decide.”

The Bench was hearing appeals against the dismissal of petitions by the Kerala High Court. Doctors and professors at government homeopathic colleges had challenged the purview of the state’s January 2010 decision to increase the retirement age of allopathic doctors to 60 years.

While the appeal against the Court’s decision was pending, in April 2012, the government also extended the benefit of enhanced retirement age to homeopathic medical colleges.

However, since the appellants had retired by then, they claimed retrospective application of the 2012 decision.

Though the appeal before the Supreme Court was not amended to raise such a prayer, the appellants filed an additional affidavit stating that the state refused to implement its decision.

The Apex Court stated that as a matter of policy, the state may deny the benefits considering financial implications, administrative concerns, and service demands. It added that the appellants could have argued by citing Article 14 of the Constitution of India if the matter had remained the same during the judgment of the high Court.

The Judges observed, “But after respondent No.1 (state government) issued three successive G.Os extending the age of retirement of the members of the dental, ayurvedic, and homeopathic faculties from 55 years to 60 years, the insistence on the part of the appellants that these G.Os ought to be given retrospective effect, even though there was no clause to that effect inserted therein, cannot be countenanced.”

They said that though the appellants were first to raise the “battle cry”, all along there was no positive order granted in their favor.

The Bench added, “Even in the present proceedings, no interim order was passed in favor of the appellants who have superannuated in the meantime. The clock cannot be put back for them by reading retrospectively in the G.O. dated 9 April 2012, when the state elected not to insert any such clause and evidently intended to apply it with prospective effect.”

It explained that the idea behind extending the retirement age of doctors was to take care of the emergency caused by a shortage of doctors, which was affecting the studies or patient care.

Thus, while dismissing the appeal, the Court held, “It was not merely to grant benefits to a particular class. The doctrine of legitimate expectation does not have any role to play in matters that are strictly governed by the service regulations. The exercise is undertaken by the state in the discharge of its public duties and should not brook undue interference by the Court.”