By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Monday stayed a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order allowing research institutes’ scientists who are involved in teaching work to retire at 65 years, like other teachers.
Challenging the CAT order on behalf of the government, Additional Solicitor General Amrendra Saran said scientists who also took classes in the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) cannot be treated on a par with teachers as they were appointed to the post of scientist and not teacher.
The CAT last year directed the government to raise the retirement age for scientists in research institutes’ faculty from 62 to 65, as applicable to other teaching staff, after senior ICAR scientists pleaded that their retirement age too be raised to 65 years.
The ICAR is a research institute and the scientists who teach were not appointed to the sanctioned post of a teacher, Saran said.
If the tribunal order was not overruled, it would affect 5,000 scientists working in various research institutes across the country, Saran said before a vacation bench headed by Justice S.L. Bhayana, which stayed the CAT’s order till July 3.