Increase PU faculty’s retirement age to 65: Sanjay Tandon to Shah

Former Chandigarh BJP president Sanjay Tandon, who is currently co-incharge of party affairs in Himachal Pradesh, has asked Union home minister Amit Shah to increase the age of superannuation of the teaching faculty at Panjab University (PU) from 60 to 65 years.
In his letter to Shah, Tandon wrote, “As you are aware central service rules have been implemented in Chandigarh and the move has helped employees, especially the teachers of government colleges under Chandigarh administration. However, the teachers working at Panjab University (which is largely supported by the central government) are still superannuating at the age of 60 years, which has created an anomaly within the teaching faculty of affiliated colleges and the university. However, Panjab University as a stakeholder has already accorded its consent for the increase in age through the approval of the syndicate and senate, which is pending with ministry of education, department of higher education. Unfortunately, the solicitor of the Union of India has taken a stand contrary to the resolution of the Panjab University in a long pending court case regarding superannuation of Panjab University teachers.”
The issue
While Central Service Rules have been adopted by the UT in 2022 for its colleges and Punjab Engineering College (PEC), the retirement age for teachers here has been raised to 65 years. The service conditions of teachers in PU are determined by the PU calendar as per which retirement age is currently 60. The matter had been approved by the PU senate and PU had written to the centre regarding this after which the centre stated that the proposal should be reconsidered with the Punjab government.
While PU has been trying to amend its calendar to enhance the retirement age of teachers from 60 to 65 years, the Union ministry of education had written back to the PU in January this year, asking it to reconsider the proposal with the Punjab government rather than take it up with the Centre.
In May 2023, a Punjab and Haryana high court division bench directed that the teachers at Chandigarh’s private-aided colleges will be allowed to work beyond 60 as an interim measure.
The interim directions were issued by the bench of justice MS Ramachandra Rao and justice Sukhvinder Kaur while hearing a clutch of appeals filed by some teachers against a single-judge order.
On December 23, 2022, an HC single-judge bench dismissed a plea from a college teacher, observing that the University Grants Commission (UGC) order about the retirement of college faculty at 65 years did not apply to teachers working in private-aided colleges in the city.
The single-judge bench order came on the plea by Gurmej Singh, an associate professor with Sri Guru Gobind Singh College, Sector 26, a private but government-aided college, who had approached the high court challenging the administration’s December 2022 order, which said aided-college faculty will retire at the age fixed by Punjab government, which is 60 and not 65.