- (1.) R. A. Sharma, J. Being aggrieved by an order retiring him from service at the age of 58 years, the appellant who was a Junior Engineer in the irrigation Department of the State, filed Writ Petition No. 5036 of 1997. The Writ petition having been dis missed with costs of Rs. 5,000/- by a learned Single Judge on 12-2-1997, the appellant has filed this appeal.
(2.) THE learned Counsel for the appel lant has made three submissions namely: (1) the appellant having joined the Depart ment as a Group 'd' employee is entitled to retire at the age of 60 which is the age of retirement of Group 'd' employees even though he was holding the Group 'c' post of Junior Engineer on the date on which the impugned order of retirement was passed, (2) as this Court has granted interim orders in some of the Writ Petitions filed earlier by some of the Junior Engineers permitting them to continue in service upto the age of 60 years, the learned Judge ought to have granted the similar interim order in favour of the appellant and it was not open to the learned Judge to dismiss the Writ Petition; and (3) In view of the fact that the Writ Petition filed by some Junior Engineers have been entertained earlier, there was no occasion to impose the cost of Rs. 5000/-against the appellant. The appellant has filed a sup plementary affidavit alongwith an applica tion in which he has given reference of two writ petitions filed in this Court by Junior Engineers and has also quoted a stay order dated 4-1-1994 passed in one of those writ petitions whereby the petitioner therein has been permitted to continue in service upto the age of 60 years. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties. Fundamental Rule 56, the relevant extract of which is reproduced below, has fixed the age of superannuation of the State Employees: "56. (a) Except as otherwise provided in other clauses of this rule, every Government Ser vant shall retire from service on the afternoon of the last day of the month in which he attains the age of fifty- eight years. He may be retained in service after the date of retirement on superan nuation, with the sanction of the Government, on public grounds, which must be recorded in writ ing, but he must not be retained after the age of 60 years except in a very special circumstances; Provided that a Government Servant, recruited before November 5, 1985 and holding the Group "d" post shall retire from service on the afternoon of the month in which he attains the age of 60 (Sixty) years. "
(3.) BY the above Rule, the superannua tion age for the State employees has been fixed at 58 years. But an exception has been made by the Proviso in favour of Govern ment servants holding Group 'd' posts who were recruited before November 5, 1985. The said proviso can be applied only when two conditions are satisfied : (1) the Government servant must have been recruited | before November 5,1985 and (2) he is hold ing Group 'd' post at the time of his retire ment. If any of the above two conditions is not satisfied, the Proviso will not be ap plicable and the Government servant must retire at the age of 58 years. Therefore, a Government jervant who was recruited before November 5, 1985 as a Group 'd' employee but has subsequently been promoted to Group 'c' post, his case will be governed by the main provision of Rule 56 (a) and the Proviso appended thereto will not be applicable to him. He has, therefore, to retire at the agt of 58 years. In this con nection reference may be made to a decision of the Division Bench of this Court in Ram Chandra Lal v. Zila Panchayat Rajadhikari, 1994 (3) UPLBEC; 1708, relevant extract of which is reproduced below: "5. It is thus apparent that for every Govern ment servant of this State retirement age is 58 years and the only exception, which has been made by the proviso to the above rule is in favour of a Government Servant of Group "d" who was recruited before November 5,1985 in whose case the age of the retirement is 60 years. Accordingly, all the Government servant will retire at the age of 58 years unless a Government Servant belongs to Group 'd' and was recruited before November 5, 1985 for whom the Proviso to Fundamental Rule 56 has fixed the age of retirement at 60 years. " The appellant was although recruited as a Group 'd' employee in the Department, but he was subsequently promoted as Junior Engineer and was also confirmed on that post. The post of Junior Engineer belonged to Group 'c' for which the age of retirement has been fixed at 58 years. The first contention, therefore, has to be rejected.;