Aloke Chakrabarti, J. - (1.) THE petitioner was to retire at the age of 58 years treating the date of his retirement as 30 -11 -1993 but the date of birth of the petitioner being 18 -11 -1935 his date of superannuation was 18 -11 -1993. Certain charges were levelled against the petitioner by an order dated 24 -11 -1993 suspending him from service followed by notices issued by an Inquiry Officer. A disciplinary proceeding followed and ultimately by order dated 2 -5 -1994 a sum of Rs. 44,500 -35 was directed to be adjusted from the retiral benefits of the petitioner. Challenging the said order this writ petition was filed. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that under Rule 26 of the U.P. State Cement Corporation Ltd. Employees Service Rules, 1980 the age of retirement of the petitioner is 58 years and, therefore, the petitioner was to retire on 18 -11 -1993. In such circumstance a proceeding initiated after the said retirement is not legally permissible nor any order passed therein can be implemented. Law has been referred to as decided in the case of C.L Verma v. State of Madhya Pradesh and another : 1989 (59) FLR 786 (SC).
(2.) THE respondents have filed a counter affidavit a copy of which has been made available at the time of hearing. In respect of retirement age it has been admitted therein that the age of retirement is 58 years but as per practice the petitioner was permitted to continue upto 30 -11 -1993. After considering the respective contentions of the parties I find that in the case of C.L. Verma (supra) the age of superannuation was 58 years as contained in Rule 29 of the Statutory Rules applicable therein. The said Rule 29 had also a proviso making a provision that the State Government may allow a member of the service to continue in employment in the interest of Municipal Council or in public interest. In the said case State Government issued a notification making a general provision for retirement of all Municipal Officers/employees to retire on the last date of the month and during the said extended period proceeding was taken up against the employees concerned but considering the facts the Apex Court held that even the said notification being not under the aforesaid Rule 29 the age of superannuation could not be extended and the petitioner could not be treated as continuing in service beyond the actual date of superannuation. In the present case there is no such provision granting liberty to any authority to allow any employee to work till the end of the month and, therefore, extension of the petitioner beyond the date of retirement following a past practice could not help the respondents to initiate a proceeding after the date of superannuation according to his date of birth.
(3.) IN view of the aforesaid findings, the entire proceeding initiated after superannuation of the petitioner is liable to be quashed as no case has been made out that disciplinary proceeding was permissible even after the age of superannuation.;