Excluding Outside State Experience To Consider Retirement Age Extension Arbitrary : Supreme Court Grants Relief To Bengal Professor

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (July 30) granted relief to a Professor who was denied the benefit of an extended retirement age from 60 to 65 years due to the State of West Bengal's misinterpretation of its own policy, which unfairly excluded teaching experience acquired outside the State from the eligibility criteria.

“To insist on past teaching experience of 10 years within the State of West Bengal for extension of service, particularly when the employee has already worked for fourteen years is arbitrary and illegal.”, the court observed.

“Extension of the retirement date, dependent on past experience of teaching in a university or a college located in West Bengal alone has no object to sub serve and as such classification of employers into those who have acquired teaching experience in West Bengal and those who acquired such experience outside West Bengal is artificial, discriminatory and arbitrary. The stand taken by the state and the university is illegal and violative of the equality norm as enunciated by this Court.”, the Court added.

The bench comprising Justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Misra heard the case where the appellant, with 14 years of service in West Bengal and prior teaching experience in Assam, was denied the extension of retirement age benefit in West Bengal on grounds that his out-of-state experience i.e., in Assam would not count for seeking benefit in West Bengal.

Briefly put, the appellant, a professor who taught for 16 years at a college in Assam before joining a West Bengal university in 2007, was denied the benefit of increased retirement age under a 2021 West Bengal State Memorandum. Although the policy granted the extension to those with 10 years of continuous teaching in “any State-aided university/college,” the University excluded his Assam experience, limiting eligibility to service within West Bengal.

The Single Bench of the High Court ruled in Appellant's favour, however, the Division Bench set aside the Single Bench ruling, prompting the Appellant to move to the Supreme Court.

Setting aside the impugned finding, the judgment authored by Justice Narasimha criticized the West Bengal State's narrow interpretation of the memorandum limiting the benefit of the retirement age extension to person who had acquired 10 years of experience in their State. On plain interpretation of the memorandum, the Court noted that the memorandum nowhere supports state's interpretation to limit the extension of benefit to candidates who have acquired experience in West Bengal.

“The Notification dated 24.02.2021 simply incorporates the expression “in any State-aided University or Government-aided College” as in Section 4, conveying the context of employment in an aided institution. The purpose of the Notification is not to exclude those who had acquired the 10 years of teaching experience from universities or colleges outside West Bengal.”, the court observed.

The classification based on teaching experience only within West Bengal was deemed arbitrary and discriminatory. The State failed to show any rational nexus between the restriction and the goal of administrative efficiency.

“In any event, excluding those who had teaching experience from a university or a college outside the State of West Bengal for the purpose of granting the benefit of extended date of retirement does not stand to reason.”, the court added.

The Court cited precedents such as J.S. Rukmani v. Govt. of T.N. 1984 Supp SCC 650 and Harshendra Choubisa v. State of Rajasthan (2002) 6 SCC 393 to strike down parochial classifications lacking a legitimate state objective.

“Further, it is also necessary to demonstrate the nexus that the experience of teaching in the State of West Bengal has to the extended period of service. There is absolutely no material to this effect. We see nothing more than an artificial classification. It is a classic case of a suspect classification intended to sub-serve only parochial interests and nothing more. To insist on such a requirement for extension of date of retirement is totally unjustified.”, the court said.

“We have already examined and concluded that the text, the context, the purpose as well as the object of providing, “continuous teaching experience of 10 years in any university” as a condition in the Notification dated 24.02.2021 is not at all to exclude such experience from universities or colleges outside the State of West Bengal. Thus, the submission based on definition clauses is rejected as misplaced.”, the court concluded.

In terms of the aforesaid, the court allowed the appeal, and declared that the Appellant will be entitled to the benefit of the extension of retirement age.

Cause Title: SUBHA PRASAD NANDI MAJUMDAR VERSUS THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL SERVICE & ORS.

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 754

Click here to read/download the judgment

Appearance:

For Petitioner(s) :Mr. Gaurav Agarwal, Sr. Adv. (Arguing counsel) Mr. Shashank Shekhar, AOR

For Respondent(s) :Mr. Jaideep Gupta, Sr. Adv. (Arguing counsel) Mr. Kunal Chatterji, AOR Ms. Maitrayee Banerjee, Adv. Mr. Rohit Bansal, Adv. Ms. Mrinalini Mukherjee, Adv. Mr. Krishnan Venugopal, Sr. Adv. (Arguing counsel) Mr. Siddhartha Chowdhury, AOR Mr. Snehasish Mukherjee, Adv. Mr. Piyush Malik, Adv.