Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J.:- 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 ones 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 December 30, 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 August 27, 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.

3. 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.

4. 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 appellants submissions become self-evident.

5. His principal contentions, not all the secondary details, alone need detain us. His first challenge is to the competence of th