KRISHNA IYER, J. - (1.) THE appellant, an Accounts Officer compulsorily retired betimes, appearing in person, has painstakingly and proficiently presented his case which calls for mercy, if not justice. Obsession with one's own case and inability to see things in perspective are often a frailty of a party who spends the enormity and anguish of his superannuated leisure on the main pursuit of his litigative points, and this makes for prolixity and subjectivity of submissions, which are not the persuasive but the provocative part of the art of advocacy. Even so, we have listened with sympathy to the studious orality and read with patience the manuscript arguments emanating from the appellant. He was an Accounts Officer since 30/12/1961, having been so promoted and appointed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (C. & AG.). THE story of his career was snapped when he was compulsorily retired 'in the public interest' on 27/08/1975 under F. R. 56 (j) (i) by the Accountant General (A. G.). Had he run his full course, his continuance until April 1980 would have been sure. Finding himself an uneasy casualty when the easy axe of F. R. 56 (j) (i) fell on him, the appellant challenged the premature retirement in the High Court only to be greeted with a dismissal in limine. Here he has arrived by special leave and argued before us that his forced retirement is dubious and violative, in many ways, of F. R. 56 (j) (i).
(2.) THE Fundamental Rules govern the Central Civil Services and ensure the career security which is the sine qua non of contented service. But potential compulsory, retirement under F. R. 56 (j) (i) haunting the afternoon of official life injects an awesome uncertainty which makes even the honest afraid, the efficient tremble and almost everyone genuflect- not a happy prospect for a civil servant too young to sit idle and too old to get a new job. A jetsam has no option but to become driftwood or join the other profession where everyone, desirable and undesirable, has a chance. We stress this deleterious latency of F. R. 56 (j) (i) to underscore the unwitting harm to public interest it does in the name of public interest. Judicial monitoring becomes an unpleasant necessity where power may be humour and a career may be a victim. The grounds on which the order of retirement has been challenged by the appellant may be formulated immediately after quoting the rule itself : 56 (i) Notwithstanding anything contained in this rule the appropriate authority shall, if it is of the opinion that it is in the public interest to do so have the absolute right to retire any Government servant by giving him notice of not less than three months in writing or three months' pay and allowances in lieu of such notice. (i) If he is in Class I or Class II service or post and had entered Government service before attaining the age of thirty-five years after he has attained the age of fifty years. Note: 1 - Appropriate authority means the authority which has the power to make substantive appointment to the post or service from which the Government servant is required or wants to retire. A break-down of the provision brings out the basic components. The order to retire must be passed only by 'the appropriate authority'. That authority must form the requisite opinion not subjective, satisfaction but objective and bona fide and based on relevant material. The requisite, opinion is that the retirement of the victim is 'in public interest' - not personal, political or other interest but solely governed by the interest of public service. The right to retire is not absolute, though so worded. Absolute power is anathema under our constitutional order. 'Absolute' merely means wide not more. Naked and arbitrary exercise of power is bad in law. These essentials once grasped, the appellant's submissions become self-evident.
(3.) HIS principal contentions, not all the secondary details, alone need detain us. HIS first challenge is to the competence of the Accountant General compulsorily to retire him because according to the appellant, he is not the 'appropriate authority' within the meaning of the rule. The appointing authority who actually appointed the appellant was the C. & AG., but the A. G. retired him on the assumption that he had the requisite power Article 311 (1) insists that a civil servant shall not be dismissed or removed by an authority "subordinate to that by which he was appointed". The appellant, by parity of reasoning, argues that the A. G., being subordinate to the C. & AG., has no power to retire him. The fallacy in the argument lies in the confusion between 'dismissal' and 'compulsory retirement. The two cannot be equated and the constitutional bar cannot be operative. Therefore, we have to find, on an independent enquiry, as to who is the appropriate authority under Rule 56 (j) (i). Under Note 1 to F. R. 56, the authority entitled to make substantive appointments is the appropriate authority to retire Government servants under the said rules. From this Note, which is virtually a part of the rule, the respondents contend that the power of the appropriate authority in respect of Accounts Officers like the appellant has been vested in the A. G. by Notification of the Ministry of Finance dated 29-11-1972. Since the A. G. has been clothed, from that date, with power to appoint substantively Accounts Officers, he has become the appropriate authority for compulsory retirement even though the appellant Accounts Officer had been appointed by the C. & AG. prior to 29-11-1972. In the light of the note which is part of the rule, read with the notification delegating the power to the A. G., we see no flaw in the order impugned. No doubt, ordinarily the appointing authority is also the dismissing authority but the position may be different where retirement alone is ordered. There, the specific provision in the Note to FR 56 must hold good and Article 311 is not violated either. Nor is there any discrimination, as contended for, because retirement is a category different from the punishments covered by Article 311.;