In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court has overturned the 2023 decision of the Calcutta High Court, providing relief to a retiring teacher whose retirement age extension was denied by the West Bengal government. The state government had earlier justified its stance by claiming the teacher did not fulfill the condition of having 10 continuous years of teaching experience in any university within West Bengal.

A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Mishra disagreed with this reasoning, stating that differentiating between teaching experience within and outside the state, especially at the stage of retirement after long years of service, was unjustified and lacked valid reasoning.

Key Observations by the Supreme Court:

• The February 2021 government notification—which increased the retirement age of university teachers from 60 to 65 years—did not intend to exclude teachers who had prior experience in universities outside West Bengal.

• The Court emphasized that the language and intent of the notification were meant to distinguish between state-aided and private institutions, not between geographical locations of previous service.

• The bench said, "There is no justification to separate employees based on whether their teaching experience was in West Bengal or elsewhere, especially when they have served for years and are about to retire."

"1556" data-end="1838">The Calcutta High Court had previously upheld the West Bengal government's decision to deny the benefit of extended retirement age to the petitioner, citing the lack of 10 years of continuous service within a state university. This ruling was now set aside by the Supreme Court.