Judgment

GROVER, J.

( 1 ) THESE appeals by special leave are from a judgment of a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court affirming the decision of a learned single Judge who had dismissed the writ petitions of the appellants.

( 2 ) THE appellant in C. A. 1789/69 entered service as a teacher in a private aided school on 14/03/1946. Both the appellants in C. A. 1790/69 had joined service originally as teachers in aided schools but they entered Government school service on 17/08/1958 and 13/12/1948 respectively. Similarly in C. A. 1791/69 the appellant joined government service as a teacher and attained the age of 5 5/07/1968.

( 3 ) IT appears that on 22/11/1965 all associations of Government and private aided school teachers of which the appellants were members submitted a memorandum to the Government making various demands. One of these (No. 11) was that the age of retirement of school teachers should be raised to 60 years. On 14/07/1966 the Government issued an order by which the age of retirement was raised from 55 to 58 years. Paragraph 8 of this order was in the following terms:-"the age of retirement of at teachers including Head Masters of aided schools will be raised to 58 wit