The Supreme Court has ruled that government employees have no vested right to insist on enhancement of retirement age from 55 to 60 years or so as it is purely a policy decision that should be left to the discretion of the state.

“Such a decision lies exclusively within the domain of the executive. It is for the State to take a call as to whether the circumstances demand that a decision be taken to extend the age of superannuation in respect of a set of employees or not," a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Rajesh Bindal said.

"The appellants herein cannot claim a vested right to apply the extended age of retirement to them retrospectively and assume that by virtue of the enhancement in age ordered by the State at a later date, they would be entitled to all the benefits including the monetary benefits flowing from G.O. (government order) dated January 14, 2010… on the ground of legitimate expectation,” the apex court said.

The bench passed the recent judgment while dismissing the appeal filed by a batch of Kerala government homeopathic doctors and teachers — M.P. Prakasam and others — seeking parity with allopathic doctors whose retirement age was enhanced from 55 years to 60 years through a government order issued on January 14, 2010, which was made applicable from May 1, 2009.

Initially, the benefit of enhanced retirement age was made applicable to allopathic doctors, but was subsequently extended to homeopathic and ayurvedic doctors in 2012. But in the meantime, the appellant doctors had retired.