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Judgment
Petitioner has filed the present writ petition being aggrieved by order dated 13/6/2014 contained in Annexure-P/6. By order dated 13/6/2014,
petitioner was informed that his date of retirement is 30/09/2015. He is to be superannuated on attaining the age of 58 years. Vide circular dated
27/07/2012, Madhya Pradesh State Electricity Board has given an option to its employees to retire at the age of 60 years. However, said option is not
available to such Class-I, II and III employ-ees who had been declared to be a dying cadre and such employees were not in-cluded in the set up
structure of the company. Along with the said circular, a list has been attached showing the post which are included in dying cadre. 42 posts of Class-
III Civil Assistant were declared to be dying cadre.
Chief General Manager of Madhya Pradesh Madhya Kshetra Vidyut Vitaran Company Limited issued an order on 27/07/2012 by which the age of
re-tirement of superannuation of all company cadre employees was declared to be 60 years except for Class-IV Line Attendant for whom age
remains to be 55 years.
Learned counsel appearing for petitioner submits that order dated dated 13/6/2014 is arbitrary and has been passed without application of mind.
Peti-tioner was working in M.P. State Electricity Board as a permanent employee. His service has been transferred to the respondents company. The
service condition of petitioner could not have been changed in arbitrary manner. Respondents are making classification of employee which is arbitrary
in nature. Respondents can-not make classification within the same cadre of employees and such classifica-tion is arbitrary and bad in law.
It is further submitted by him that on 29.10.2015, respondent has issued another circular on the basis of letter dated 28.10.2015 issued by the State
Gov-ernment, Department of Energy. By said letter, such employees who have been declared as dying cadre were also given option to retire at the
age of 60 years. This option is only available to such employees who are retiring after 16.10.2015. The benefit of circular dated 28.10.2015 is not
available to the peti-tioner as he had retired on 30/09/2015.
Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner further submitted that no reason or rational is given for fixing cut off date on 30.10.2015 for giving
benefit of retirement to dying cadre employees at the age of 60 years. Same set of em-ployees belonging to dying cadre were retired at 58 years while
same employees whose date of superannuation is falling after 16.10.2015 were given the benefit to continue in service and superannuated on attaining
the age of 60 years. Setting up of cut off date on 16.10.2015 is discriminatory in nature and petitioner too ought to have been allowed superannuation
at the age of 60 years.
Respondents filed its reply to the writ petition and stated therein that peti-tioner was appointed vide order dated 16.06.1980 on the post Welder. As
per en-abling provision Section 79 (c) of Electricity Supply Act, 1948, M.P.E.B. (Gen-eral) Service, Regulations were formulated. Regulation 12
provides the age of re-tirement of servants of the Board belonging to Class-I, II and III to retire at the age of 58 years and Class-IV servants of the
Board may retire from service bey-ond the age of 60 years. It is averred by the respondent No.2 and 3 that as a policy matter State Government has
constituted several companies and service of the petitioner was handed over to Madhya Pradesh Madhya Kshetra Vidyut Vitaran Company Limited.
In the new set up, as per cadre proposal there was no post of Civil Assistant in the Central Zone. Number of posts in cadre wise pro-posal, the post of
Civil Assistant at Serial No.42 in restructuring set up as on 01.01.2011 is shown to be ""0"". As there were no post of Civil Assistant in re-structured set
up of Central Zone Successor Company of M.P.E.B., therefore, said post has been declared to be a dying cadre. Petitioner has not challenged the
Constitution of dying cadre in writ petition. There is no classification within the class and the writ petition filed by the petitioner deserves to be
dismissed.
Considered the arguments raised by both the parties. It is clear from the ar-guments made by the parties that respondents had issued two circulars
one circu-lar is issued on 27.07.2012 by which the employees in the dying cadre have no option to choose the age of retirement at the age of 60 years
and they are retired on attaining the age of 58 years and by second circular dated 28.10.2015, cut off date has been fixed i.e. on 16.10.2015 and those
employees who will retire after 16.10.2015 can exercise the option to retire at the age of 60 years. Whether re-spondent Nos.2 and 3 can treat similar
employees differently by fixing a cut off date of 16.10.2015 and retire them at different age ?
Counsel appearing for the respondents has relied on para-16 of the judg-ment passed by the Apex Court in case of Directorate of Film Festivals
and oth-ers V. Gaurav Ashwin Jain and others; (2007) 4 SCC 737 and argued that Court cannot act as Appellate Authority in examining the
correctness, suitability and appropriateness of policy. The scope of judicial review when examining policy of the Government is to check whether it
violates the fundamental rights of the cit-izens or is opposed to the provisions of the Constitution, or opposed to any stat-utory provision or manifestly
arbitrary. Court cannot interfere with the policy either on the ground that it is erroneous or on the ground that a better, fairer or wiser alternative is
available.
Article 14 and 16(1) permit reasonable classification having nexus to the objects to be achieved. Circular dated 27/7/2012 lays down that dying
cadre of Senior Civil Assistant will retire on attaining age of 58 years. Since post of Civil Assistant was zero in reconstructed company, therefore,
circular dated 27/7/2012 was issued and option to retire at 60 years was not given to Civil Assistant. There was nexus with the object, therefore,
circular cannot be said to be arbit-rary. The validity of circular dated 27/7/2012 cannot be judged on the basis of circular dated 28/10/2015. Two
circulars were issued at different point of time as per the needs of the organization existing at that point of time. Policy matters cannot be interfered
until shown in violation of fundamental rights or contrary to law. Classification is a division or category in a system which divides things into a group or
types. Fixing retirement age of employees cannot be said to be classi-fication of employee. If retirement age of an employee is increased or decreased
in future by a circular then same is not classification of an employee as it applies to whole category /class of employees at that point of time.
In view of above writ petition is dismissed.