A-I plea on retirement age dismissed

The petitioners, B J Shetty and others, had with them the hopes of around 500 other A-I personnel, who were to retire on May 1, 1999 after completing 58 years of age. They were challenging the decision to revert the retirement age to 58 years in keeping with the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations, following the Central government announcment of July 1998 to extend the retirement age for all Central government employees to60 years.

The petitioners, represented by senior counsel Anand Grover and Sandhya Dabholkar, argued that A-I8217;s decision to revert the age was arbitrary since the retirement age for all the others, like Indian Airlines, Pawan Hans, Hotel Corporation of India, Airport Authority of India and the Directorate of Civil Aviation was 60 years. They also challenged A-I8217;s reasoning that it had to revert the retirement age since it was suffering financial losses to the tune of Rs 500 crore. According to the petitioners, this did not take into consideration the fact that A-I was making losses due to its own mismanagement.

However, the matter was stiffly defended by the respondents, who claimed that the main recognised unions of employees had accepted the retirement age at 58 years, and that all material facts were taken into consideration when the Aviation Ministry took the decision to revert.