The central legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of the retirement age for Persian teachers as per the notification, emphasizing the requirement of a show cause notice prior to superannuation at the age of 62.

JUDGMENT :

Heard learned counsel for the parties through V.C.

2. The instant writ application has been preferred by the petitioner praying therein for quashing of the order as contained in Memo No.942 dated 04.09.2010 issued by the respondent No.4; whereby the petitioner has retired with effect from 31.01.2010 on attaining the age of 62 years and was directed to hand over the charge to the senior most teacher of the Madarsa and provide the charge report to the said authority. The petitioner has further prayed for a direction upon the respondent authorities to allow him to continue in service with all consequential benefits till the age of 65 years in view of the fact that the petitioner is a teacher of Persian subject and as per clause-21 of the notification dated 19.12.1977 published in Bihar Gazette dated 12.04.1978 the retirement age of a Persian teacher is 65 years.

3. The brief facts of the case is that the petitioner has passed Fazil in Persian examination held in the year 1968 and he was appointed as Persian teacher in the year 1979 in Madarsa Hussainia Tajweedul Quran, Mahgama, Godda and since then he was teaching Persian in the said Madarsa. At the time of issuance of the impugned order he was Head Moulvi in which post he was duly promoted which was also approved by the Jharkhand Academic Council, Ranchi.

All of a sudden, the impugned order has been issued whereby the petitioner was directed to retire from service with effect from 31.01.2010 after handing over the charge to the senior most teacher of the said Madarsa.

4. Mr. Afaque Ahmad, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the action of the respondent authorities is bad in law, inasmuch as, the notification which they are relying whereby they are contending that the petitioner is entitled for service only till the age of 62 years is misconceived, inasmuch as, in the said Gazette notification itself at clause-21 it has been specifically indicated that normally the teacher of Persian subject would retire after attaining the age of 65 years. However, if the respondent so desire, due to bad health of any teacher, the said teacher can retire at the age of 62 years, but for that a show-cause notice has to be issued to the teacher before passing an order of retirement at the age of 62 years and in the instant case no notice was ever issued to this petitioner before issuance of impugned order, as such the very action adopted by the respondent authorities is non-est in the eye of law.

5. Mr. Bhaskar Trivedi, learned counsel for the respondent-State relying upon the same notification submits that at clause No.20 of the Gazette notification it has been categorically sated that after attaining the age of 62 years any teacher will automatically retire. He further relied upon paragraph Nos.9 and 20 of the supplementary counter affidavit dated 31.08.2021.

For brevity, the same is quoted hereinbelow:-

9. That it is humbly stated and submitted that the age of retirement of the teachers of Madarsa and the Sanskrit Schools were fixed as 62 years and the same was communicated by the Secretary, Primary Education to all the District Education Officers within state of Jharkhand vide memo No.10/Vi 1-01/2019/908 dated 27.03.2019.

20. That it is humbly stated and submitted that with regard to paras 9 & 10 of the writ petition under reply, the answering respondent submits that the same is matter of record however the answering respondent stated and submits that there was no such direction passed by the answering respondent directing the petitioner to hold charge and continue working. It is also submitted that the committee without approval of the answering respondent as well as without concurrence of the JAC informed petitioner for which the answering respondent cannot be fastened with the liability.

That it is submitted that the answering respondent upon receipt of the letter from Committee wrote a letter to the Secretary, Jharkhand Academic Council vide memo no. 277 dated 20.02.201