Supreme Court Keeps Himachal Pradesh Government on tenterhooks on the issue of retirement age
Shimla, July 14: In a significant relief to Himachal Pradesh government employees who had retired at the age of 60 years following a High Court order, the Supreme Court has dismissed the Himachal Pradesh government's Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the case of State of Himachal Pradesh vs Satya Devi.
However, the apex court has deliberately left open the larger legal question of whether the state's decision to roll back the retirement age from 60 years to 58 years is legally valid.
A Bench comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu noted during the hearing on July 13 that respondent Satya Devi had already been allowed to continue in service till the age of 60 years and had also received all her retirement benefits on that basis.
Since the relief sought by her had already been granted, the court found no reason to keep the SLP pending and dismissed it.
Importantly, the Supreme Court clarified that it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the controversy and that the issue of the legality of the Himachal Pradesh government's rollback of the retirement age from 60 to 58 years would be decided in an appropriate future case.
The court also directed that Satya Devi should not be denied any service or retirement benefits on the ground that she ought to have retired at 58 instead of 60 years.
During the hearing, Advocate General Anup Rattan informed the court that several writ petitions and other proceedings involving the same issue are pending before the Himachal Pradesh High Court, where judgments were being delivered based on the High Court verdict challenged in the present SLP.
Accepting the state's request, the Supreme Court ruled that the impugned High Court judgment shall not be treated as a precedent while deciding those pending cases.
The order is expected to have a significant bearing on hundreds of pending retirement-age cases in Himachal Pradesh, as the legal issue remains unresolved and will now have to be adjudicated independently in future proceedings rather than on the basis of the High Court judgment in the Satya Devi case.
