TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1954 (1) TMI 46
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....n the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Ambala for a declaration that the order passed by the Government of India, which is the defendant in the suit, retiring the plaintiff from his service was wrongful, void and inoperative and that the plaintiff should be deemed to continue still in the service of the defendant. The material facts, which are for the most part uncontroverted, may be shortly narrated as follows: The plaintiff entered the service of the Government of India as a clerk in the Central Research Institute at Kasauli on the 7th of May, 1912. Under Rule 56 (b) (i) of Chapter IX of the Fundamental Rules, which regulate the civil services, a ministerial servant may be required to retire at the age of 55 but should ordinarily b....
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.... Institute endorsed a note on his application that he could not be spared. A third application was presented by the plaintiff on the 18th of September 1945 praying for reconsideration of his petition and urging one additional ground in support of the same, namely, that the war was already at an end. This application too shared the fate of its predecessors and the Director of the Institute did not agree to his retirement. After this the plaintiff kept silent for nearly 8 months and on the 28th May 1946 he made his fourth application which, it appears, met with a favourable response. In this application also it was stated that the plaintiff would attain the age of 55 years on the 27th of November 1946 and he prayed, therefore, that the ....
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....t to return to duty and to continue service till the age of 60 years did not at all arise. It was in consequence of this letter that the present suit was filed by the plaintiff on the 5th of July 1949. 3. The legality of the Government communication mentioned above has been attacked in the plaint substantially on a two-fold ground. The first ground alleged is, that under Rule 56 (b) (i), Chapter IX of the Fundamental Rules, the age of retirement is not 55 but 60 years. The rule no doubt gives the Government a right to retire a ministerial servant at the age of 55, but that can be done only on the ground of his inefficiency. Consequently, before a servant coming within that category is required to retire at 55, it is incumbent upon the Go....
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....e District Judge at Ambala. The plaintiff thereupon took a second appeal to the High Court of Punjab and the appeal was heard by Falshaw, J. sitting singly. The learned Judge allowed the appeal, upholding both the contentions raised by the plaintiff and decreed the suit. Against this decision there was a further appeal to a Bench of the same High Court under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent and the Letters Patent Bench reversed the judgment of the single Judge and dismissed the plaintiff's suit. The plaintiff has now come up to this Court and Mr. Umrigar, who appeared in support of the appeal, reiterated before us both the contentions that were pressed on behalf of his client in the Courts below. 6. As regards the first point, Mr. Umr....
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....n. Ever since May 1945 when he had not even completed his 54th year, the plaintiff began making importunate requests to his official superior to allow him to retire from service. It will be noticed that in his first application he mentioned the fact of his having completed 33 years of service as a ground for obtaining the permission prayed for. There is, in fact, a rule in the Civil Service Regulations under which a retiring pension is granted to an officer who is permitted to retire after completing service for 30 years. It is not clear whether this rule which relates to superior service was at all applicable to the plaintiff. But it is a fact that in his applications for leave preparatory to retirement he laid great stress on two facts....