Delhi HC Rejects Coal-Scheme Bid By 2 Retired Army Officers Who Turned 60 Before Sponsorship

The petitioners, retired Army officers, registered for sponsorship under the Coal Loading and Transportation Scheme and were placed on DGR’s waiting list in 2018.

The Scheme became inoperative after Coal India Limited discontinued the 2013 MoU in 2020.

DGR and CIL executed a new MoU on 14 October 2025, but DGR issued implementing guidelines only on 8 June 2026.

Meanwhile, Petitioner No. 1 turned 60 on 28 April 2026 and Petitioner No. 2 on 3 July 2026; neither had been sponsored.

They sought implementation of the 2025 MoU and maintenance or extension of their eligibility and seniority.

The latter relief was not pressed when notice issued, and DGR subsequently filed an affidavit stating that implementation had commenced.

Article 226 empowers the Court to enforce existing legal rights, not create new ones; registration or placement on a waiting list under a welfare scheme does not, without more, confer a vested right to allocation or sponsorship (*Col. Laxmi Narayan*; *Brig. Jaswinder Singh Gulati*; *Brig. Sandeep Kala*).

Under Clause 27 of the 2025 MoU, waitlisted officers are considered subject to all eligibility criteria and officers who have crossed the prescribed age limit are to be struck off the list; eligibility must subsist when sponsorship is granted.

A requisition initiates the selection process but does not itself confer a right to sponsorship, which is a distinct stage.

The Court also applied the principle that a policy may be judicially interfered with where it is palpably arbitrary, mala fide, irrational, or contrary to statute, and that no person may claim equality in an illegality.

DGR had issued the 2026 Guidelines, invited willingness from eligible officers, scrutinised applications, prepared panels, and begun sponsorship; the Court therefore held that a further direction to implement the MoU would serve no purpose, particularly because the petitioners were no longer eligible.

The 2025 MoU made age eligibility a condition at sponsorship, and neither petitioner had been sponsored before turning 60.

The January 2026 requisitions did not confer an individual right: sponsorship depended on seniority, the officer’s turn, and eligibility when sponsorship occurred.

The petitioners also did not establish that their turn would have arisen before they crossed the age limit.

The Court found no basis to treat the time taken to approve and notify guidelines as arbitrary or to grant an age relaxation contrary to the Scheme; the alleged out-of-turn allocations were unsupported by particulars.

It dismissed the petition for lack of merit and disposed of the pending applications.