The Kerala High Court has directed the State government to consider and take a decision on a representation by employees of various cooperative societies, including cooperative banks, seeking enhancement of their retirement age to 60 from 58.
Justice Devan Ramachandran passed the order recently on a batch of writ petitions filed by employees of cooperative societies. The court directed the government to take a decision within two months and ordered that their retirement will be subject to the decision taken by the government.
When the petition came up for hearing, the government contended that it was within it policy realm to take a decision on the retirement age of the employees. In fact, Section 183(2) of the Kerala Cooperative Societies Act had fixed the age of superannuation of cooperative society employees at 58 years.
The petitioners said the government had simply rejected their request, merely saying it did not propose to increase the retirement age because it was its policy.
The court observed that it had been well settled by a slew of judgments of the High Court and the Supreme Court that such policy decisions will have to be guided by reasonable and non-capricious consideration. Since the State government had not answered the claims of the petitioners in these cases until now, they must be directed to do so.
