All these writ petitions relate to the enhancement of retirement age of the employees in the Kerala State Financial Enterprises Ltd. ('KSFE’ for short) and are therefore disposed of by this common judgment. Parties and documents referred to in this judgment are as described in W.P.(C) No.3267 of 2017, unless specified otherwise.

2. The employees of the KSFE are in the 4th round of litigation for enhancement of retirement age. At the time when these writ petitions were filed, the Board of Directors of KSFE had already taken a decision to enhance the retirement age, but their proposal was not approved by the Government. Subsequent to the filing of these writ petitions the Board of Directors cancelled their earlier decision to enhance the retirement age.

3. The KSFE is a company fully owned by the Government, incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 and it is a miscellaneous non banking financial institution. The service conditions of the employees of the KSFE are governed by “Standing Orders applicable to the employees of the Kerala State Financial Enterprises Ltd.” which is a certified standing order in terms of Clause 17 of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders Act, 1946). As per clause 17 of the standing orders, the age of retirement of the employees under the KSFE is 58 years. The service of the employees in KSFE is not pensionable except under Employees P.F Scheme. Seeing that the retirement age of the employees was enhanced in various public sector undertakings as well as the Government institutions, the employees of the KSFE had submitted a representation on 1.8.2013 requesting for enhancement of retirement age to 60 years. Thereafter, writ petition W.P (C).No.27353 of 2013 was filed by some of the employees for the same relief. By judgment dated 20.02.2014, the writ petition W.P(C).No.27353 of 2013 was disposed of along with other connected cases directing the respondents to take a final decision on the question of retirement age.

4. In the 460th meeting of the Board of Directors held on 25.06.2014, item no.18 in the agenda was “to consider the enhancement of retirement age of the Company employees from 58 years to 60 years and implementation of VRS to the Company Employees. The minutes with respect to decision on item no.16, reads:

“The Board while discussion noted that the Government of Kerala has hiked the retirement age of State Government Employees from 55 to 56 and many State and Central PSUs have also enhanced the retirement age of their employees. In the case of scheduled banks, the retirement age is already sixty. Seventeen states of India and the Central Government have already adopted sixty as the retirement age. In present scenario of Chit Business under Chit Funds Act, 1982, which is more stringent in enforcement of its various sections, more and more private operators are on the look out for experienced officers who have worked with organized corporates in the field like K.S.F.E. If they reach Branch Managers retiring at the age of 58, who are still in the pink of their health and mature in respect of experience, they will get a competitive edge over K.S.F.E, To avoid this precarious and detrimental situation, it will be advisable to rise the retirement age to sixty as in most of the other State Governments, Central Government PSUs, Central Government and some of the State PSUs. It is also a fact that the Employees in Government who are now recruited through KPSC (from the financial year 2013-14 onwards) have their retirement age fixed as sixty (vide the budget for the financial year 2013-14 presented by the Honourable Finance Minister). This reform has coincided with the abolition of pension for the newly recruited State Government employees and introduction of the “Contributory Pension”. K.S.F.E Employees have not been granted the pension facility (as was prevalent in State Government till the financial Year, 2012-13) and this renders more justification for raising of retirement age to 60, as