Industrial dispute – Date of birth – Claim for correction of date of birth in the service record after a delay of 25 years by the workman – Permissibility – Award by the Industrial Tribunal permitted the change in date of birth of the respondentworkman in the service record, after 25 years of joining service, from 1960 to 1972, based on a Transfer/School Leaving Certificate issued in 2015 – Award set aside by the Single Judge of the High Court, however upheld by the Division Bench – Correctness:
Held: Claim for correction of date of birth after a delay of 25 years, ought not to be entertained – Order of the Single Judge upheld – Division Bench apparently got swayed by the fact that in writ jurisdiction, the High Court ought not to have interfered with the finding of the tribunal which was based upon appreciation of evidence, and that the School Leaving Certificate/Transfer Certificate was not challenged by the appellant-employer – Fact about the family and dependents in service records not denied or disputed by the respondent – If the claim of the respondent is accepted, he would be only 18 years of age at the time of entering into the service and almost impossible to have a wife aged 24 years and four daughters aged between 6 months to 6 years.
12 – Also there is signature of the respondent on the service book bearing year 1992 – Once he had the knowledge, he ought to have applied for correction in the very beginning – If the respondent had actually studied in matriculation and there was a Transfer Certificate/School Leaving Certificate of 1987, the same ought to have been filed either at the time of joining or at any time soon thereafter – Certificate relied upon has been issued nearly 28 years after leaving the school which should have been considered by the tribunal as well as the Division Bench – Furthermore, no evidence on record to show that an incorrect date had been recorded due to negligence of some other person – Thus, the impugned judgment of the Division Bench set aside. [Paras 9-13]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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