In the absence of a rule fixing the retirement age, the normal practice in similar establishments can be taken to be a part of the contract of service, and it is impossible to construe the contract of service as one for life.

ORDER :

Ramanujam, J.—The petitioner entered the field of General Insurance in December, 1941 as an Assistant in the Fire Department of the New India Assurance Company Limited and continued in that employment till July, 1943. Thereafter, he worked in various Insurance Companies. At the time of the nationalisation of General Insurance by the Government of India, in May. 1971 the petitioner was working as a Senior Branch Secretary of the General Assurance Society Limit-ed at Madras, he having been appointed to that post on 8-9-1969. After the nationalisation of the general insurance business the petitioner was asked to submit his bio-data for the purpose of fixation of his proper rank in the new set up. The petitioner submitted his bio-data ; but the work of categorisation, however, was not completed by the Committee constituted for the purpose. In the meanwhile, the Government of India thought out a new scheme under which four subsidiary companies were accorded the status of beginning or acquiring companies of the General Insurance Corporation of India. They are; (1) the New India Assurance Company Limited, (2) Oriental Fire and General Insurance Company Limited, (3) United India Fire and General Insurance Company Limited and (4) the National Insurance Company Limited. 106 Companies in the country doing general insurance business at the time of the nationalisation were grouped in batch of not less than 24 companies and each batch merged with one acquiring company or other. Each of the acquiring companies was under the control of a Chairman-cum-Managing Director. The General Assurance Society in which the petitioner was working became a unit of the National Insurance Company Limited hereinafter referred as the company, and the petitioner continued to be the senior Branch Secretary of the National Insurance Society Limited in the Southern Zone.

2. According to the petitioner, even though the nationalization was promulgated in May, 1971, there was no integration of the services and no rules and regulations prescribing the service condition of the officers of all categories of the erstwhile companies had been framed. So much so, notwithstanding the said regrouping and merger, the officers and other employers of the erstwhile private companies continued to be governed by the rules and regulation obtained in their respective companies. In December, 1974, 24 officers were selected for appointment as Administrative Officers by the Southern Regional Office of the National Insurance Company Limited and the petitioner was one among them. The petitioner had received on 17-1-1975 a communication, dated 18-124974 from the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of National Insurance Company Limited informing him that he has been provisionally selected for the appointment of Administrative Officer, and that he would hold the post on the same terms and conditions of service by which the petitioner was then governed until those terms and conditions are duly altered by the company. The petitioner was functioning as an administrative officer on the basis of the said order of appointment, dated 18-12-1974.

3. However, on 4-4-1975, the petitioner received a communication, dated 3-4-1975 from the Divisional Manager, Madras Divisional Office No. 3 of the National Insurance Company Limited stating that the petitioner has to retire from service on 30|-6-1975, he having attained the age of 60 on 4-6-1975. The petitioner immediately replied stating that the rules obtained in his erstwhile company, viz., the General Assurance Society which alter regrouping has become a unit of the National Insurance Company Limited, does not provide an age of retirement from service, and asking for a copy of the rules under which the retirement order was based. The petitioner, was not, however, furnished with a copy of the rules as requested by him. In these circumstances the petitioner has filed this writ petition challenging the validity of the said retirement order, dated 3-4-1975