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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside a Tripura High Court order that had directed the State to raise the minimum age of retirement of Anganwadi workers from 60 to 65 years [State of Tripura & Ors. v Rina Puryakastha & Anr.].
A bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Ahsanuddin Amanullah observed that under existing statutory norms, it is the State government that has the power to decide service conditions, including age of retirement of Anganwadi workers.
“Looking to the very nature of the work and the structure of services, when the State Government is the primary authority to decide the said service conditions of these honorary workers, no mandamus could have been issued so as to thrust a particular age of discharge,” the bench said in its order.
It also made strong observations against the High Court’s decision to direct the State to change its policy.
“The stretch of consideration by the Division Bench that by enhancing the age of retirement, the requirement of substitute is delayed remains bereft of logic and in any case, that does not provide a legal ground to force the State Government to alter its policy … do not provide any basis for issuance of a mandamus to the State Government to change its policy, particularly when the policy is otherwise not shown to be suffering from any illegality or irrationality,” the bench observed.
The High Court had reasoned that with the Central government funding 90 per cent of the Integrated Child Development Scheme under which such workers are employed, the State would not have much of a financial implication by the move.
It had observed that a later retirement age would delay the need for replacements.
The State government moved the Supreme Court in appeal and while issuing notice on the appeal, the top court appointed Senior Advocate Ritin Rai as amicus curiae to assist it, as no one had appeared to represent the party respondents who were originally the petitioners before the High Court
The amicus pointed out even if the retirement age was raised to 65 years, the State would only have to bear an additional outlay of ₹23.7 Crore. He added that parity in employment is a reasonable expectation and when similarly situated Anganwadi Workers are enjoying retiral age of 65 years in a number of States in the country, reasonable expectations of the similarly situated Anganwadi Workers in Tripura cannot be denied.
However, the arguments of the amicus failed to find favour with the top court as it noted that there were no statutory provision to provide for a uniform retirement age.
“It is clear that even while certain propositions/expectations had been laid by the Central Government, the existing statutory norms do not provide for uniform age limit for retirement of AWs/AHs; and it is for the State Government to decide as regards the service conditions, including the age of discharge..The proportion of the share of the Central Government and the finances is hardly decisive of the matter,” the Supreme Court stated.
The appeal was, thus, allowed and the High Court’s order was set aside.
However, it was clarified that payments already paid to workers who benefitted by the High Court’s order are to not be taken back, nor are they to be removed from service.
Senior Advocate Ranjit Kumar along with advocates Shuvodeep Roy, Sai Shashank, Deepayan Dutta, and Amit Gautam appeared for the Tripura government.
Additional Solicitor General Vikramjit Banerjee along with advocates Gurmeet Singh Makker, Nachiketa Joshi, Prashant Rawat, Ayush Anand, Deepabali Dutta, and Arun Kumar Yadav represented the Central government.
