Giving relief to the retiring professors of Panjab University, Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday allowed them to continue with their jobs on the basis of re-employment after the age of 60.
Making an interim amendment to the orders passed by the Single Bench on August 16, the Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Sudeep Ahluwalia also allowed the professors to continue with their official accommodation, until the final outcome of the petition on the retirement age.
The orders are bound to get immediate relief to at least 68 professors, teaching in Panjab University or the affiliated colleges.
In their appeal against the Single Bench orders of August 16, the teachers of Punjab University said that the Panjab University Syndicate and Senate had approved the hike in the retirement age of teachers of the university to 65.
The appellants’ have claimed that the the retirement age as per the UGC regulations claiming Panjab University to be a centrally funded institution, as more than 90 per cent grant was coming from the Union of India.
The petitioners submitted that a task force committee by the Prime Minister Office to had recommended hike in retirement age. The counsel for the petitioners contended that the petitioners would be retired from service by the varsity by wrongly taking the superannuation age as 60, instead of 65, as mandated under the University Grants Commission regulations, 2010.
On August 16, Justice Amol Rattan Singh has dismissed the petition of the teachers for raising the age of retirement and directed the university to retire the teachers, who had crossed the determined age.
During the course of hearing, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development had submitted that the Panjab University was not a centrally funded
institution.