The Anganwadi Workers is the crucial functionary under Integrated Child Services (ICDS) who undertake proper care of pregnant mother and children who are in their infancy stage. They hold much importance in their safety. However, their retirement tenure is now the prevailing matter in the current scenario where the verdict of the Tripura High Court regarding the same got overturned by the Supreme Court recently.
The Tripura High Court approved the retirement age of the Anganwadi Workers up to 65 years. But the 5 workers relinquished from their course as they were in the service for 60 years. Therefore, High Court Justice Arindam Lodh in their writ petition favoured the re-employment of those 5 workers within the time period of four weeks or a month[1]. Furthermore, the divisional bench on 29th June 2021 also supported the verdict of a single judge and locked their retirement age at 65 years. But despite such fact, the State government never stopped the workers from retiring their services at 60 years. Subsequently, a writ was filed again on which the High Court instructed for their reinstatement[2].
Eventually, the Supreme Court on Tuesday considered the State of Tripura & Ors. v. Rina Puryakastha & Anr. In this case, it quashed the verdict of the Tripura High Court which was based on the extension of their retirement age to 65 years. Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Ahsanuddin Amanullah believed that it is the power of the State government to look upon the service condition including the age of discharge[3]. There was no representation from the end of the private respondent in response to the appeal made by the State government. In order to have a fair hearing, the court appointed the Mr. Siddhartha Sinha in the form of an amicus curiae. The Amicus curiae presented their finding before the honorable court by stating that there is no harm in stretching the retirement age of the Anganwadi workers since it is not supposed to infringe any of the fundamental rights. Many states apart from Tripura have already fixed their age up to 65 years. But subsequently, both the justices don’t influence by such a statement of facts. They believed that according to the existing norms do not contain the uniform age limit for the requirement of AWs/AHs[4]. The state government is only authorized to review the service condition matters comprising the age of discharge. Hence the mandamus to the State Government became inoperative by the bench.
Written by- Aniruddh, student of ILSR, GLA University, Mathura, 2nd Semester, a legal intern under Legal Vidhiya
[1] TRIPURAINFO, https://tripurainfo.com/news.aspx?intnid=16030&title=Anganwadi-workers-can-serve-up-to-65-years-Tripura-High-Court-verdict (last visited 3rd May, 2023)
[2] Ibid
[3] TRIPURATIMES, https://tripuratimes.com/ttimes/sc-sets-aside-tripura-hc-order-to-raise-retirement-age-of-anganwadi-workers-to-65-yrs-7297.html (last visited 3rd May, 2023)
[4] LIVELAW, https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-retirement-age-anganwadi-workers-as-65-years-in-tripura-227851 (last visited 3rd May, 2023)
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