K.Balasundaram vs The State Of Tamil Nadu on 14 September, 2017
That is the combined effect of the staff circular No. 18 dated 8.4.1974 read with the Pension Fund Rules referred to supra. The reason for prescribing the maximum age limit of 35 or 38, as the case may be, for the purpose of induction into pension fund appears to be that the employee would be able to render minimum service of 20 years as contemplated by Rule 22 of the Pension Fund Rules. However, there does not appear to be any rationale or discernible basis for fixing the cutoff date as 1.1.1965, notwithstanding their earlier confirmation in Bank service. True, a new benefit has been conferred on the ex-servicemen and therefore a cutoff date could be fixed for extending this new benefit, without offending the ratio of the decision in D.S. Nakara and others Vs. Union of India [AIR 1983 SC 130]; but, there could be no arbitrariness or irrationality in fixing such date. Minimum qualifying service being the essential consideration, even according to the Bank, there is no reason why the ex-servicemen like the respondents, who from the date of their confirmation had put in more than twenty years of service, even taking the retirement age as 58, should be excluded. No reason is forthcoming in the counter-affidavit filed by the Bank for choosing the said date. When it is decided to extend the pensionary benefits to ex-servicemen drawing pension, the denial of the benefit to some of the serving employees should be based on rational and intelligible criterion. In substance, that is the view taken by the High Court and we see no reason to differ with that view.