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Subha Prasad Nandi Majumdar v. The State of West Bengal

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 910Decided 30 Jul 2025
Civil Appeal No(s). of 2025 (Arising out of SLP (C) No(s). of 2025; Diary No. 11923 of 2024)
Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha · Justice Manoj Misra

Background

The appellant taught for 16 years at a government college in Assam before joining Burdwan University in West Bengal in 2007, where he was later promoted to Senior Secretary. In 2021, West Bengal issued a notification extending the retirement age from 60 to 65 for staff with at least 10 years of continuous teaching experience "in any State-aided University or College." The University and State denied him this benefit, arguing "any university" really meant only universities aided by West Bengal, since his prior teaching experience was in Assam. The Calcutta High Court's Single Judge ruled in his favour, but the Division Bench reversed, reading the notification narrowly through definitions in the parent 1976 Act.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the plain text, context, and purpose of the 2021 notification showed its only intent was to distinguish state-aided institutions from private ones, not to exclude teaching experience gained outside West Bengal. Given the appellant had already worked continuously and without objection for 14+ years at the university, denying him the benefit purely because his earlier teaching was in another state was found to be an artificial and arbitrary classification with no rational connection to the notification's purpose, violating the constitutional guarantee of equality. The Court added strong observations that such narrow, parochial administrative decisions, even when framed as "minor" interpretive choices, can undermine constitutional fraternity and must be struck down by courts. The appeal was allowed with costs of Rs. 50,000, and the High Court's Division Bench order was set aside.

Lesson Learnt

Government notifications and circulars must be interpreted by their actual purpose and wording, not stretched or narrowed using unrelated definitions from other parts of a statute; denying an employee a benefit through an artificial classification, especially near retirement after decades of loyal service, is discriminatory and will be struck down.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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