Ramachandran Nair, J.

The question raised in the Review Petition and in the connected Writ Petitions is whether the petitioners who are members of the teaching staff namely, Lecturers, Assistant Professors, Professors and Principals of Government Colleges and Aided Colleges in Kerala, are entitled to get a direction from this court to the Government to extend the retirement age of teaching staff in colleges in Kerala from 55 years to 65 years in terms of UGC Regulations dated 30.6.2010 and Central Government Orders annexed thereto. Issue came up before us in a batch of Writ Appeals filed against judgments of the learned Single Judges and in the batch cases we rejected the claim for the reason that retirement age is a policy decision of the State Government and the court cannot interfere in it, much less to issue positive direction to the Government to increase the retirement age of teaching staff in colleges affiliated to Universities in Kerala. We have dismissed the Writ Appeals by taking into consideration the earlier Division Bench judgment of this court in the same subject which was followed by the learned Single Judges while rejecting the claim. The appellants who lost the Writ Appeals before us filed SLPs against our judgment before the Supreme Court and the Honourable Supreme Court dismissed the SLPs vide common order dated 11.8.2010. However, the petitioners before the Supreme Court brought to the notice of the court UGC Regulations dated 30.6.2010 which was issued subsequent to disposal of the Writ Appeals by this court and contended that their claim should be considered based on the said Regulations of the UGC. Therefore, while dismissing the SLPs the Honourable Supreme Court observed as follows "dismissal of these SLPs will not come in the way of the petitioners seeking any remedy under the said UGC Regulation dated 30.6.2010, if available as per law". Based on this observation one of the appellants in the disposed of Writ Appeals filed the above Review Petition and in view of the filing of the Review Petition, several others filed fresh writ petitions before the Single Judges seeking same relief. Since Review Petition was pending before us, the connected writ petitions filed before the Single Judges were called by us and are heard along with the R.P. We have accordingly heard Senior counsel Smt.V.P.Seemanthini and the counsel appearing for various petitioners, separate Standing Counsel appearing for UGC and the Universities in the party array and also Special Government Pleader for the State.

2. The issue raised by the petitioners stands squarely covered against them by a relatively new decision of the Supreme Court in a batch of cases in B.BHARAT KUMAR VS. OSMANIA UNIVERSITY reported in (2007) 11 SCC 58. On going through the judgment what we find is that the issue got first decided in T.P.GEORGE's case wherein this court declined to direct the Government to increase retirement age of college teachers based on UGC recommendations. The Honourable Supreme Court confirmed the judgment of this court in the decision in T.P.GEORGE VS. STATE OF KERALA reported in (1992) Supp.(3) SCC 191. This judgment is followed by the Supreme Court in the abovereferred judgment and they have categorically stated that it is absolutely within the powers of the State Government to accept the UGC scheme in part and reject the balance and the Government's decision not to increase the retirement age based on UGC recommendation will not go against any provision of the Constitution including Entry 66 of List I of VIIth Schedule or Article 245 of the Constitution of India. In view of these two binding decisions of the Supreme Court, we have to only consider whether the new Regulations issued by the UGC on 30.6.2010 introduces any drastic change in law to bind the State Government, which on their refusal could be enforced through court orders.

3. Before proceeding to consider the case on merits, we have to refer to the submission of