The main legal point established is that persons in contingent service were not governed by R.60 of the Kerala Service Rules on the 7th of April, 1970, and therefore not entitled to the benefit of clause (b) of R.60.

1. The petitioners in all these cases were admittedly in contingent service as on the 7th of April, 1970.

Some of them were in contingent service on part-time basis and others were in contingent service on full-time basis on the said date. Subsequently, their services were regularised by the Government by its order No. G.O. (P) 133/71/Fin. dated 26-3-1971 with effect from 1-4-1971. When they were sought to be retired from service on attaining the age of superannuation of fifty-five years, they have come to this court with the respective Original Petitions under Art.226 of the Constitution of India for a direction to the respondents not to retire them from service on attaining the age of 55 years on the ground that they are entitled to remain in service until they complete 60 years of age, they not having attained the age of 60 years. This claim is made by them on the ground that clause (b) of R.60 of Part I of the Kerala Service Rules, hereinafter referred to as the Rules, is applicable to them. The stand taken on behalf of the respondents on the other hand is that they are governed by clause (a) of R.60 and therefore they are liable to retire on attaining the age of 55 years. The principal question for examination therefore is as to whether the petitioners who were in contingent service, either as part-time or full-time, on the 7th of April 1970 are governed by clause (b) of R.60 of Part I of the Rules, after their services stood regularised from the 1st of April 1971.

2. R.60 of Part I of the Rules prescribes the age of superannuation describing as compulsory retirement, and the same for convenience is extracted as below:

"60 (a). Except as otherwise provided in these rules the date of compulsory retirement of an officer shall take effect from the afternoon of the last day of the month in which he attains the age of 55 years. He may be retained after this date only with the sanction of Government on public grounds which must be recorded in writing, but he must not be retained after the age of 60 years except in very special circumstances.

(b) Officers in the Last Grade Service on the 7th April, 1970 will retire on the afternoon of the last day of the month in which they attain the age of 60 years provided that this benefit will be available to them only as long as they continue to be in the Last Grade Service as defined in R.12 (16A)".

This rule regulates the age of retirement of all government servants who are governed by the Rules. Whereas 55 years of age is the age of superannuation as prescribed by clause (a) of R.60 in respect of Government servants governed by the Rules, a higher age of 60 as the age of retirement is available for the specified category of Government servants who are governed by clause (b) of (he Rules. Clause (b) of the Rule provides that officers who were in the Last Grade Service on the 7th of April, 1970 will retire on attaining the age of 60 years, provided they continued to be in Last Grade Service as defined in R.12 (16A) of the Rules. In other words, on ceasing to be in Last Grade Service, the benefit of clause (b) of R.60 becomes unavailable. It is necessary to point out that prior to 7-4-1970 Government servants who were in Last Grade Service were entitled to the higher age of superannuation of 60 years. With effect from 7-4-1970, those in the Last Grade Service were brought in par with other Government servants with the result that they also have to retire on attaining the age of 55 years. With a view to protect the rights of Government servants who were in Last Grade Service on the 7th of April, 1970, who were governed by the higher age of superannuation of 60 years, clause (b) came to be introduced in the Rule. It is clear from Clause (b) that it is in the nature of an exception to clause (a). If the Government servant governed by the rules cannot satisfy the conditions specified in clause (b), he would be governed by clause (a) of R.60. There are two conditions for the applicabili