Delhi High Court Strikes Down Rules Prescribing Different Retirement Ages For Officers Of Coast Guard Based On Rank

A division bench of Justices C. Hari Shankar and Om Prakash Shukla observed that the Rules cannot sustain scrutiny of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India

The Rules provide that officers of the rank of Commandant and below would retire at 57, whereas officers above the rank of Commandant would retire at 60.

The Court has now ordered that the superannuation age of 60 years would apply to officers of all ranks, uniformly.

The Petitioners, officers of the Coast Guard who retired at the age of 57, argued that the Rules result in invidious and unconstitutional discrimination.

Centre on the other hand submitted that Coast Guard is a sea going service which requires a young age profile and medically fit personnel.

The High Court conceded that no one can have a claim to retire at a particular age. Nonetheless, it added that disparity in superannuation age must refer to duties or operational responsibilities of the post.

In the case at hand, the Court was “flabbergasted” at the justification offered by the Centre, of a hypothetical Coast Guard employee, between the age of 57 and 60, being stranded at, and the expense, difficulty, and risk to life which rescuing him would entail.

“Despite racking our minds as to how this somewhat unfortunately conceived circumstance could have any relevance whatsoever to different ages of superannuation of members of the Coast Guard above the rank of Commandant and of the rank of Commandant and below, we have failed to arrive at an answer. Is it that persons below the age of 57 years would not fall sick while at sea or that there would be any lesser difficulty in bringing them back?” the Court wondered.

It observed that there was no empirical basis to assume that officers would be less medically fit at 60 than at 57.

Court was also dismayed at submissions like increasing the age of superannuation of officers upto the rank of Commandant to 60 would adversely affect sustained growth of the fleet, resulting in juniors with greater lengths of service being placed under officers who are senior but with lesser length of service.

The Court thus set aside the age disparity and directed that the Petitioners shall entitled to be treated as having continued in service till the age of 60, and to the pay of the post held by them at the time of their retirement for a further period of three years, which would include any increments or pay refixation benefits to which they might have become entitled during that period. Their retiral benefits would also be recomputed accordingly.

Appearance: Mr. Himanshu Gautam, Mr. Kishan Gautam, Ms. Anuradha Pandey, Mr. Lokesh Sharma, Advs. for Petitioner; Mr. Raj Kumar Yadav, Senior Panel Counsel alongwith Mr. Vaibhav Bhardwaj and Ms. Tripti Sinha, Advs for Respondents (and batch)

Case title: Cheeli J Ratnam v. Union Of India & Ors. (and batch)

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1587

Case no.: W.P.(C) 6028/2021 (and batch)

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