IMPORTANT POINT
Respondent’s claim being in accordance with the rules should have been acceopted by the appellant.

JUDGMENT

Pinaki Chandra Ghose, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. The present appeal arises against the order of the High Court of Jharkhand at Ranchi in Letters Patent Appeal No.90 of 2010 dated September 20, 2010, which was filed against the order dated December 11, 2009 passed by the learned Single Judge in a writ being W.P. (S) No. 496 of 2007 filed by the respondent in the present matter, wherein the court quashed the order dated August 2, 2006 passed by the Project Officer, Jamunia Open Cast Project (hereinafter referred to as ‘Project Officer’) Area of the Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. (being appellant No. 1 in the present matter), which stated that the respondent will superannuate on February 28, 2007.

3. The brief facts leading to the same are as under :

1. The respondent joined appellant No. 1, Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. (‘BCCL’), a ‘Government Company’ as under Section 617 of the Companies Act, 1956, his date of joining as per the impugned order is stated to be March 31, 1973. At the time of joining, his date of birth was recorded as February 15, 1947, in Form ‘B’, a statutory form stipulated under the Mines Rules, 1955, the basis of recording the same is not clear. The respondent obtained a Secondary School Leaving Certificate issued on October 12, 1979, which indicated that he attended Rajya Samposhit Uchcha Vidyalaya, Baghmara, a Government school in Dhanbad from January, 1964 to August, 1964. In the said certificate, the date of birth of the respondent is recorded as February 6, 1950, which is in conflict with his date of birth as entered by him in the service records being the aforementioned Form ‘B’.

2. Subsequently, in 1983, he was transferred to the Jamunia Open Cast Project and as stated, he once again signed the Form ‘B’ wherein his date of birth was recorded as February 15, 1947 and he allegedly did not raise any objections then.

3. In 1986, the respondent passed the Mining Sardarship and in the certificate acknowledging the same his date of birth was recorded as February 6, 1950, corresponding to the date recorded in the aforementioned School Leaving Certificate. Therefore, there existed two sets of records of the respondent’s details; first being the Form ‘B’ register on one hand in which the date of birth was recorded to be February 15, 1947 and second being the Mining Sardar Certificate and the School Leaving Certificate wherein the date of birth was recorded as February 6, 1950.

4. In 1987, the National Coal Wage Agreement III (hereinafter referred as ‘NCWA III’) being Implementation Instructions were put into operation for stabilizing service records of employees. Pursuant to Implementation Instruction No. 76, appellant No. 1 provided its employees with Nominee Forms as prescribed by the Implementation Instructions which contained relevant extracts from the service records in the Form ‘B’ register, thereby enabling the employees to identify any discrepancy or error in the records and get the same rectified as per the prescribed procedure. In wake of the same the respondent became aware of inconsistencies in the records regarding his date of birth, date of appointment, father’s name and permanent address; therein the respondent made representations to the Project Officer, Jamunia Open Cast Project for rectification of the abovementioned errors and he specifically sought the incorrect date of birth to be corrected as per the date mentioned in the Mining Sardar Certificate and the School Leaving Certificate. It appears that the concerned authorities rectified the discrepancies regarding the name of the father and the permanent address; however the date of birth and date of appointment remained unchanged. Thereafter, as stated by the respondent, he made a subsequent representation to the concerned Project Officer on July 16, 2006 for correction of the date of birth in the Form ‘B’ register in accordance with the Mining Sardar Certificate and the same was rejected by the appellant company vide letter dated July 19, 2006.

5. The Proj