The Supreme Court has ended a nearly decade-old discrimination meted out by the Indian Air Force (IAF) to have different sets of retirement age for Group Captains who came by merit against those who were promoted after 26 years of service.
Finding no rational basis for justifying such a classification introduced by the Centre in 2005, the bench of Justices TS Thakur and C Nagappan struck down the Government order of March 12, 2005 which prescribed an early retirement age of 54 years for Group Captain (Time Scale) as compared to the meritorious counterparts who had an extended service of three years till the age of 57.
Dismissing the appeals filed by the Centre against an order of the Armed Forces Tribunal, the SC bench held, “So long as the officers are a part of the cadre, their birth marks, based on how they joined the cadre is not relevant. They must be treated equal in all respects — salary, other benefits and the age of superannuation included.”
One could become a Group Captain (Time Scale) officer after serving in the IAF for 26 years. This was a special post created by the Centre in March 2005 pursuant to a Committee formed post-Kargil war in order to raise a young operational force and to provide incentive to Wing Commanders who otherwise got stagnated in their post without getting promoted as Group Captains. The meritorious Wing Commanders got accelerated promotion to Group Captain (Select) rank, who could retire on this post till they attained age of 57.
The Armed Forces Tribunal had agreed that such a distinction was not based on any intelligible criteria and ruled in favour of the Group Captain (Time Scale) petitioners. The tribunal said, “When both the persons wear the same rank, draw the same salary and get the same grade pay and then to say that one Group Captain (TS) will retire at the age of 54 and the other Group Captain (Select) at the age of 57 years. This distinction which is sought to be made has no rational basis.”
The Centre appealed against the Tribunal order suggesting that parity in retirement age of two sets of Group Captains will “adversely” affect the morale of the force, including reduction in combat effectiveness. But the Time Scale officers, who were represented by advocate Meghna Mishra for Karanjawala law firm pointed out that prior to introduction of the post of Group Captain (TS), there was no separate retirement ages for Wing Commanders, both TS and Select. Moreover, the Committee which had recommended the Centre to create this additional post had also asked the Army to similarly create TS post at the level of Colonel. But the Government kept same retirement ages for Colonel (TS) and Colonel (Select).