Bar on Withdrawing Voluntary Retirement After Acceptance Is Arbitrary: Rajasthan High Court Reads Down Pension Rule

The petitioner, a Lab Boy in the Elementary Education department, applied for voluntary retirement under Rule 50 in October 2022, after his son died by suicide (para 2). On 14.11.2022 the request was accepted, with retirement to take effect from 01.02.2023 (para 2). On 07.12.2022 he applied to withdraw it; on 13.12.2022 the request was rejected because the proviso to Rule 50(4) bars withdrawal once acceptance has been communicated in writing (paras 3, 6). He challenged that part of the Rule as manifestly arbitrary under Article 14 (paras 1, 4, 12). The State argued that the Rule only fixes a cut-off for withdrawal and that later withdrawals would cause administrative chaos (para 5).

Under Shayara Bano and the Electoral Bond judgment, a law is manifestly arbitrary if it is capricious, irrational, without an adequate determining principle, or excessive and disproportionate (paras 14-17). The three-month notice period in Rule 50 gives an employee time to rethink a hasty decision (para 21). Sub-rule (4) itself allows withdrawal with the authority's approval (para 23), but the proviso closes that option once acceptance is communicated, though retirement takes effect only later, so an early acceptance cuts short the window (paras 25-26). Raj Kumar, on resignation taking effect on acceptance, does not apply: accepting a voluntary retirement request only fixes a future date, and the master-servant relationship continues until then (paras 28, 36-37). Wing Commander T. Parthasarathy did not decide the validity of a contrary rule (para 35). Applying P.K. Mittal and Balram Gupta, an employer cannot force an earlier exit date, and flexibility is due where administration is not jeopardised (paras 29-32, 37). Administrative inconvenience is the Rule's determining principle, yet the proviso imposes a complete embargo without reference to it, and the State's reply offered no justification (paras 36, 39-40).