Govt to settle retirement age issue in all CAPFs by May-end

The retirement age of CAPF personnel is set to be fixed at 60 years after the Supreme Court recently dismissed a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the government against the direction of the Delhi High Court to resolve an existing anomaly, official sources said Wednesday.

The sources in the security establishment said the central government has time till May-end to implement the directive of the Delhi High Court and after consultations with all the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), it is "certain" that the age of superannuation in all the forces will be made uniform, well before the deadline.

"The order will be issued after final approval of the Ministry of Home Affairs. After few rounds of consultations by the ministry with all the forces, it is analysed that the age of retirement for all the personnel, from jawan to senior officers, should be settled at 60 years as compared to 57 in certain cases at present," a senior official said on the condition of anonymity.

The Supreme Court on May 10 dismissed an SLP filed by the Union government in which the latter had stated that such decisions were in the realm of policy decisions and not for the courts to decide.

Ankur Chibber, counsel for a retired CAPF official who first petitioned the Delhi Hight Court over the discrepancy, told PTI that as the SLP has been dismissed by the apex court last week, the government will now have to "implement the Delhi High Court order by May-end which had said on January 31 that uniformity should be maintained across all ranks and forces when it comes to the age of retirement."
The forces, after the conclusion of a series of meetings on the subject over the last few months, had recommended to the government that "in case retirement age is raised to 60 years, it may be explored if a system is put in place to make yearly assessment to weed out those who are not fit to continue in the force consistent with its objective."