public interest involved in the Bombay Municipal Corporation (Service Rules), 1989. It is submitted that under these Service Rules, compulsory retirement was permissible provided the appropriate authority was of the opinion that it was in public interest. Relying on the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of S. Ramachandra Raju vs. State of Orissa3 , it is submitted by Counsel that the exercise of power of compulsory retirement must be bonafide and to promote public interest. It is submitted that the purpose of a rule, such as the present, was to weed out the worthless without the punitive extremes covered by Article 311 of the Constitution and the administration, to be efficient, must not be manned by drones, do nothings, incompetents and unworthies who may not be exactly delinquents liable to be punished but may, at the same time, be a burden on the administration and impede the flow of work or promote stagnation. Relying on the judgment in S. Ramachandra Raju, it is submitted that it is settled law that the Government must exercise the power of compulsory retirement only in the public interest to effectuate efficiency of service, that to say, to remove dead wood to augment efficiency and maintain integrity in public service. It is submitted that, in the present case, these considerations have not been applied either by the Competent Authority or by the Industrial Court. In the first place, it is important to note that the question as to whether or not the compulsory retirement orders were issued in public interest, was not a question raised before the Industrial Court. The parties had not joined issues on this question. What was instead argued before the Court was that the compulsory retirement provision in the Hospital Service Rules did not apply and that it was the
