Daya Shankar Mishra vs The State of Bihar and Others

A.K. Ganguly, J.—Heard learned Counsel for the parties.

The Petitioner is aggrieved by the impugned order of termination dated 22.11.1995 which is at Annexure-6 which has been passed, inter-alia, on the ground that the Petitioner has worked for more than 43 years and thus it must be deemed that he has not properly disclosed his age and, therefore, his services have been terminated with effect from 22.11.1995.

The admitted case is that the Petitioner is claiming his date of birth to be 12.12.1938 and he was appointed on 10.10.1952. If the aforesaid fact of age is accepted to be true, in that case it amounts to accepting that the Petitioner started working prior to his completion of the age of 14 years. This Court is unable to accept the said position. This Court does not accept that a person who has not attained that age of 14 years can be appointed as Vaccinator. Even under the Constitution under Article 24, it is provided that no person below the age of 14 years should be appointed on any hazardous post. So the appointment of the Petitioner seems to be contrary to the constitutional provision as well. This Court is of the opinion that the appointment of the Petitioner below the age of 14 years on the post of Vaccinator amounts to giving him an appointment on a hazardous post.

However, in any view of the matter, since the Petitioner was allowed to continue in senrvice till 22.11.1995, his pay and allowances upto that period should be given. But in so far as the retirement benefit is concerned, learned Counsel for the Respondents submits that according to the calculation of the Respondents, the Petitioner should have attained the age of superannuation on 10.10.1992. Therefore, for the purpose of giving him the retirement benefit, he will be deemed to have been superannuated with effect from 10.10.1992. Therefore, 10.10.1992 must be considered to be his date of superannuation for the purpose of giving him retirement benefit.

With the above observation/direction, this writ petition is disposed of. There will be no order as to cost.