- (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) This appeal is directed against the judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court disposing of the writ petition filed by the respondent employee in terms of an earlier decision of the High Court in the case of mohinder Pal Singh v. Punjab and Sind Bank, and further directing that the. writ petitioner would be entitled to the same relief as was granted in mohinder Pal Singh case. The question in issue is about the validity of the voluntary Retirement Scheme. The said question stands concluded by a three-Judge Bench decision of this Court in Bank of India v. O. P. Swarnakar.
(3.) The respondent was an employee of State Bank of Patiala. The voluntary Retirement Scheme was floated by the said Bank by Circular No. Per/vrs/48 dated 20-1-2001. The employee could file application for seeking voluntary retirement under the said Scheme between 15-2-2001 and 1-3-2001. The respondent filed such an application on 24-2-2001/26-2-2001. The Scheme was closed on 1-3-2001. The respondent, however, filed an application dated 19-3-2001 withdrawing his application dated 24-2-2001/26-2-2001. Clause 8 of the Scheme reads as under: "8.Other features. The Bank intends to control the outflow of personnel according to its requirements. Towards this end, Bank retains the discretion to limit the number of employees to be allowed to retire in each category of staff viz. officer/clerical-cas/subordinate, to be covered under SBPVRS. As such, the Bank will have the sole discretion as to the acceptance or the rejection of the request for retirement under SBPVRS depending upon the requirements of the Bank. For the purpose of exercising discretion in this regard, categorywise lists of eligible applicants would be prepared in descending order of their age and applications of employees coming in higher age groups above cut-off age would be accepted; the cut-off age in each category will of course depend upon the acceptable number of employees who can be permitted to retire. No voluntary retirement shall be deemed to have come into effect unless the decision of the competent authority has been communicated in writing, which will be conveyed within a maximum period of two months after the date of closure of receipt of applications i. e. 1-3-2001. ";