Premature Retirement Orders

The orders of premature retirement of government employees are supposed to speak for themselves. Basic law as laid by Indian courts, are amended from time to time, including the Supreme Court of India’s common principal grounds on which a government servant can prematurely retire from service. The Jammu & Kashmir Government has in the past exercised the powers conferred by Article 226(2) of the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Service Regulations, by giving notices to some employees for forcefully retiring them with immediate effect after having completed a particular minimum length of service,allowing such retirees three months of pay and allowances in lieu of such a notice. But with time, we have seen that in most ofthese orders, notices issued by J&K Government since 1986 till 2017,no other reason like poor conduct / corrupt practices had been mentioned and most of the orders had been quashed by Hon’ble State HC/ Hon’ble SC of India. There has been a similar fate of orders issued by Mufti MohdSayeed, leader PDP-BJP government, which was responsible for retiring more than 60 government employees by invoking Article 226(2) of CSR on the recommendations of a review committee, headed by the then CS Mr. M.I.Khanday in June 2015.

Mr. Jagmohan, during governor’s rule had ordered premature retirement of some government officers / employees invoking the provisions Rule 226 (2) of the Jammu and Kashmir CivilService Regulations by issuing orders like Govt. Order No. 300 GR of 1986 dated 25-4-1986, Government order No.189GR of 1986 dated 11.4.1986, 1986, Govt. order No. 947 GR of 1986 dated 31 July 1986, etc. But since then, either the cases were not well structured before issuing orders, or the petitions challenging some of the orders in the courts were not well contested during judicial / legal review in the courts. Some “premature” retired employees could hence get relief at some stage of the trials.

In addition, some more lacuna may be in the offing, since the officers who were given premature retirements in 1986 were not denied superannuation gratuity and retirement pension. The affected officers would have used these gestures to establish their “good” conduct. There may be some engineer or senior officer removed from services or prematurely retired in the interest of administration,with only reason displayed as the services of the concerned officer were no more required. To quote the language of orders issued, it is said that the governor, is of the opinion that it is in the public interest to do so.

So, one could also contest that since they been arbitrarily removed from services though with pension/ gratuity benefits intact people have taken the order as that of being corrupt. Thus, relief needs to be provided by quashing the orders even if one has only a few years of service left in normal course. No doubt some may profess that in the prevailing socio –administrative environment, the APRs are rarely written in time. The APRs are managed by many to choose those with contacts, and can manage even promotions & decorations that the affected person could use during litigation as defense. Which is why the screening committees have to be serious and analytical in regards to the jobs assigned to them, both in the interest of the Government as well as the official who is being ‘reviewed’ for possible action.

It may be after 1986, where any orders for premature retirement (such as those issued in June 2015) have been issued by the Government of Jammu & Kashmir, some of them have been quashed by courts since they too have been sufferingfrom similar lapses (Such as Govt. Order No. 300 GR of 1986 dated 25-4-1986, Government order No.189GR of 1986 dated 11.4.1986, 1986, Govt. order No. 947 GR of 1986 dated 31 July 1986, etc.) due to non serious processing of the case files before issuing orders, though with intentions of imposing extreme penalties, but still issued as “pre mature” retirement orders in public interest, keeping the superannuation benefits intact.

Daya Sagar

Sr, Journalist & Social Activist 

Jammu

[email protected]

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