Exclusion of teaching experience from outside the State for retirement age extension violates equality principles and lacks a rational basis.

JUDGMENT :

(Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha, J.)

1. Delay condoned. Leave Granted.

2. The appellant challenges the Division Bench's decision, upholding the University and State's stance that a government Notification dated 24.02.2021 extending the retirement age from 60 to 65 years is inapplicable to him due to non-satisfaction of the10-year continuous teaching condition in a university situated in West Bengal. Despite the Notification’s reference to ‘any university’, the respondents argue that ‘any’ should be interpreted in consonance with the definition clause in the parent Act, limiting ‘university’ to a university constituted by a State Act.

3. After careful consideration, we conclude that the Notification’s intent was not to exclude employees with experience from universities outside the State of West Bengal. The text, the context, and the objective of the Notification reveal that, its purpose was solely to distinguish between state-aided and private institutions. Classifying employees based on past teaching experience from Universities within or outside West Bengal, particularly at the verge of retirement, after having served for decades lacks nexus and discernible object. We have thus allowed the appeals with costs.

3.1 When such decisions are subjected to strict scrutiny in judicial review, they unfortunately expose themselves as parochial, potentially undermining our resolve of fraternity. Executive decisions such as these seem minor or simple errors of perception but have far reaching consequences. Constitutional courts must be vigilant and identify such decisions, embedded in the nooks and crannies of public administration and set them aside, for they have the potentiality of triggering similar actions by other States and their Instrumentalities. The appellant asserted his right to equality, which claim like that of liberty is easier to address in a court of law. However, the principle of fraternity never asserts itself. It is the duty of the constitutional court to recognise its erosion, even in the bylanes of public administration and to restore the essential ‘We’ to ensure the unity and integrity of the nation.

4. The short facts leading to the filing of the present appeals are as under. The appellant was initially appointed as a member of the teaching staff at Cachar College, Silchar, State of Assam on 23.01.1991. Under the Assam College Employees (Provincialisation) Act, 2005, the college was taken over as a government college. After serving as such for a continuous period of 16 years, he applied in response to an advertisement dated 18.06.2007 issued by the Burdwan University, State of West Bengal for one vacancy in the post of Secretary, Faculty Council for Post-Graduate Studies in Science. He was selected and after working for some time he was promoted to the post of Senior Secretary, Faculty Council for Post-Graduate Studies in Science on 26.01.2012.

5. Almost a decade thereafter and at a time when the appellant already rendered over fourteen years of service, the State of West Bengal, issued a Memorandum dated 24.02.2021 increasing the age of retirement from 60 years to 65 years. The Memorandum provided that the benefit of increased age of retirement is extended only to those who had acquired a minimum of 10 years of continuous teaching experience in any State-aided university/college. The appellant made a representation to the Vice Chancellor of the university on 01.02.2023 claiming benefit of the Memorandum and sought fixation of his age of retirement to be on attaining 65 years.

6. The University replied on 28.06.2003, informing that the appellant will retire on 31.08.2023 on attainin