Railway retirement rule held discretionary, not mandatory; date-based classification upheld as non-arbitrary under equality principles.

A railway service rule stating that a ministerial servant may be required to retire at 55, but should ordinarily be retained if efficient, was construed as conferring only a discretionary power to continue service until 60 and not an enforceable right to remain in service. The differential treatment in later retirement notifications, which excluded servants already retired before 8 September 1948, was upheld as a reasonable classification based on the date of the policy change and not as arbitrary discrimination. The challenge to compulsory retirement therefore failed on both the service-rule construction and the constitutional objection.

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Issues: (i) Whether Rule 2046/2(a) of the Railway Establishment Code conferred on a ministerial railway servant, after attaining the age of 55 years and while remaining efficient, a right to continue in service until the age of 60 years. (ii) Whether the differential treatment adopted by the notifications and the refusal to extend the later benefit to servants retired before 8 September 1948 offended Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

Issue (i): Whether Rule 2046/2(a) of the Railway Establishment Code conferred on a ministerial railway servant, after attaining the age of 55 years and while remaining efficient, a right to continue in service until the age of 60 years.

Analysis: The rule allowed a ministerial servant not governed by sub-clause (b) to be required to retire at 55 years, while stating that he should ordinarily be retained if efficient up to 60 years. The language was held to preserve the authority's power to retire at 55 and to create only an option to retain the servant thereafter, subject to efficiency and other circumstances. The word "ordinarily" was treated as showing that retention was not mandatory and did not create an enforceable right in the servant.

Conclusion: The rule did not confer a right to be retained up to 60 years; retention beyond 55 years was discretionary and not compulsory in favour of the servant.

Issue (ii): Whether the differential treatment adopted by the notifications and the refusal to extend the later benefit to servants retired before 8 September 1948 offended Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

Analysis: The later decision of the Government changed the procedure for retirement after 8 September 1948 and treated those already retired before that date differently. This was held to be a reasonable classification based on the date of the policy change. The distinction was not arbitrary and did not amount to denial of equal protection.

Conclusion: The classification was valid and did not violate Article 14.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to compulsory retirement failed on both the construction of the service rule and the constitutional challenge, leaving no ground for interference with the dismissal of the suit.

Ratio Decidendi: A rule that says a servant "may be required to retire" at a specified age but "should ordinarily be retained" if efficient confers a discretion to retain, not an enforceable right to continued service; a classification based on the date of a policy change is valid if it is reasonable and non-arbitrary.

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