Sev­en­teen for­mer sol­diers have lost their law­suit seek­ing al­most $55 mil­lion in re­tire­ment ben­e­fits they nar­row­ly missed out on be­cause they served just short of the 20 years re­quired to qual­i­fy.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed the con­sti­tu­tion­al case brought by the group.

In the law­suit, the sol­diers, who reached re­tire­ment age of 45-years-old on vary­ing dates be­tween De­cem­ber 2019 and June 2024, claimed that their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were breached by the fail­ure of the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) to take ac­tion to en­sure that they were able to qual­i­fy.