The Supreme Court of India has told the central government that it should not continue using retirement age and service conditions for armed forces personnel that date back to the British era. These rules, the court said, are outdated and need rethinking, especially for the Indian Coast Guard, a highly skilled force that carries out important duties at sea.

The top court also put on hold a judgment of the Delhi High Court that had said all Coast Guard officers should retire at the age of 60. Instead, the Supreme Court said the government should form a group of experts to look at the rules governing service from recruitment until retirement and make recommendations.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi heard the Union government’s appeal against the Delhi High Court’s earlier decision. The top court noted that the existing rules still reflect conditions designed decades ago when India was under British rule, and that these must be changed to fit the present-day needs of the armed forces, especially for a sophisticated service like the Coast Guard.

Chief Justice Kant said, “It is high time that these regulations governing the service conditions and retirement age are reviewed. The government cannot be stuck with the conditions envisaged and drafted in the British era. Nobody these days can imagine the role played by coast guards. The current retirement age appears to follow an old pattern.”

The issue before the Supreme Court originated in a challenge to parts of the Coast Guard (General) Rules, 1986, specifically Rule 20(1) and Rule 20(2). Under the old rules, officers of the rank of Commandant and below would retire at 57 years, while officers above that rank would retire at 60 years. The Delhi High Court in November last year said this difference in retirement ages was unfair and violated the Indian Constitution’s guarantee of equality in Articles 14 and 16. The high court set aside the rule and held that officers of all ranks should retire at 60. It said there was no reasonable reason that justified having different rules for different ranks and that the practice amounted to discrimination.

When the high court made its decision, a group of retired Coast Guard officers and serving officers were among those who had challenged the rule. They argued that retiring officers below Commandant at 57, while others retired at 60, unfairly treated some personnel differently. The high court agreed with them, saying, “In the absence of any factor which indicates a rational nexus between fixing of different ages of superannuation for officers of the rank of commandant and below and officers above the rank of commandant in the Coast Guard, we are constrained to hold that Rule 20(1) and 20(2) of the 1986 Rules, insofar as it fixes different ages of superannuation, is unconstitutional and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.”

However, when the government appealed to the Supreme Court, it argued that the Delhi High Court was wrong to compare the Coast Guard with other forces like the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB).

The government’s lawyer, Additional Solicitor General Archana Pathak Dave, told the Supreme Court that the Coast Guard performs very different and often harder duties at sea, similar to the Indian Navy, and thus requires a younger and more physically fit workforce. It said that retirement ages in defence forces were set after careful consideration of recruitment age and the length of service needed to make the force efficient, and that these matters are part of government policy. Dave also said that if the high court’s order was allowed to stand, it might lead to similar demands from other branches of the armed forces.

The Supreme Court accepted that the issue needed more careful examination rather than a straight decision on retirement age. It stayed the operation of the high court’s order for the time being and directed, “Issue notice. Meanwhile, operation of the impugned judgment shall remain stayed till further orders…A counter affidavit may be filed within two weeks. List the matter two weeks thereafter.”

The bench also clearly asked the government to form a committee of experts to look into the entire range of service conditions for Coast Guard personnel, especially questions related to retirement age and recruitment standards, and to make a report to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court said that while experience is very important in a highly skilled force like the Coast Guard, the government should not be “too static or conservative” in its approach to service conditions. The message from the judges was that the armed forces need rules that reflect modern realities rather than old colonial-era ideas.