P. Sam Koshy, J
1. Challenge in the present writ petition is to the Annexure P-1, whereby the District Education Officer, Bilaspur, has vide its order dated 24.4.2018
placed the petitioner under compulsory retirement.
2. Challenge to the compulsory retirement is firstly on the ground that the District Education Officer is not a competent authority to have issued the
order of compulsory retirement to the petitioner for the reason that the District Education Officer is not the appointing authority of the petitioner who is
otherwise a Headmaster. Secondly, the District Education Officer has not taken into consideration the guidelines which have been laid by the State
Government on 25.4.2017 in respect of considering the employees of the State Government for being placed under compulsory retirement. Thirdly, it
was also the contention of the counsel for the Petitioner that the guidelines for compulsory retirement would not be applicable upon the Teachers and
Headmasters of the education department as they are exempted from being scrutinized for compulsory retirement. Lastly, it was contended that the
initial appointment of the petitioner was against the physically handicapped quota and the same cannot be taken as a ground by the respondents for
placing the petitioner under compulsory retirement.
3. So far as the cases of compulsory retirement are concerned, the State Government has subsequent to the circular dated 25.4.2017 constituted a
committee vide notification dated 5.5.2018 and whereby the State Government has taken a policy decision to consider all those cases for compulsory
retirement where the employees have questioned the order of compulsory retirement. The committee has been constituted consisting of high level
officers of the State Government.
4. Given the said facts and circumstances of the case and also the policy decision of the State Government so far as constituting a high power
committee to scrutinize those cases of compulsory retirement where the employees have questioned the same, let the case of the petitioner be also
scrutinized by the said committee. The petitioner in this regard would be at liberty to file a detailed representation before the committee raising all the
aforesaid grounds in the said representation.
5. The State Government shall refer the case of the petitioner to the said committee to be scrutinized at the earliest. The committee thereafter shall
within an outer limit of 60 days scrutinize the case of the petitioner and pass suitable order at the earliest. It is expected that the committee would
definitely take a decision objectively, particularly on those legal objections which the petitioner shall raise in his representation and which have also
been raised in this writ petition.
6. The writ petition accordingly stands disposed of with the aforesaid observations.