IMPORTANT POINT
The main legal principle established is that the matriculation certificate should be considered authentic for determining the date of birth, and courts have a duty to address injurious consequences arising from arbitrary and illegal administrative actions.

ORDER ON BOARD BY :

Goutam Bhaduri, J.

1. The present writ petition is to quash the order dated 3-1-2014 and the corrigendum dated 10-1-2014 (Annexure-P/1) wherein the date of birth of the petitioner has been considered as 21-1-1954.

2. According to the petitioner, the order dated 3-1-2014 and the corrigendum dated 10-1-2014 (Annexure-P/1) is not in accordance with the Implementation Instruction No.76 (henceforth ‘the II No.76’) wherein the date of birth of the petitioner should have been considered as 21-1-1959, which is as per the matriculation certificate issued by the Board of Secondary Education, Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal (Annexure - P/5).

3.(i) The facts of this case, in brief, are that the petitioner was appointed by the respondent SECL against the post of General Mazdoor in the year 1984 in the Western Coalfields Limited under the provisions of the dependant employment when his father namely; Charan was declared medically unfit. The petitioner contended that in the service record his date of birth was entered as 21-1-1954 instead of 21-1-1959. Pursuant thereto he sought for correction of date of birth in the year 1995 i.e. after a decade from the date of entry of his service. According to the petitioner, he was given an assurance to get the same corrected. Thereafter, the same was corrected in PS-3 (particulars of family ) & PS-4 (nomination form), but eventually the date of birth in the original service record was not corrected.

(ii) Since it did not help the petitioner, in the year 2013 he preferred WPS No.2070 of 2013 before this Court, which has been disposed of by order dated 17-7-2023 with a direction to the SECL to examine the petitioner’s grievance in the light of II No.76. Subsequent thereto, the petitioner approached the Age Determination Committee (henceforth ‘the ADC’) and the ADC determines the age/ date of birth of the petitioner as 21-1-1954. Pursuant to the said report of the ADC, by order dated 3-1-2014 and the corrigendum dated 10-1-2014 (Annexure- P/1) the respondent SECL dismissed the application of the petitioner. Hence, this petition.

4. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner would submit that review determination of date of birth in respect of existing employees is provided in clause (B) of II No.76. Learned counsel would submit that despite the fact that the petitioner produced the matriculation certificate, which contains the date of birth as 21-1-1959, the same was not accepted, however, on the basis of testimonials the petitioner was promoted upto the post of Electrical Fitter. According to him, the order of the ADC is completely arbitrary and without application of mind. In support of his contention, learned counsel would place reliance upon the decision rendered by the Supreme Court in the matter of Bharat Coking Coal Limited and Others vs. Chhota Birsa Uranw, (2014) 12 SCC 570.

5. Learned counsel appearing for the SECL, per contra, would submit that the date of birth of the petitioner in the service book, in Form ‘B’, etc. is shown as 21-1-1954, which is duly accepted by the petitioner. The petitioner having accepted the same and had gone to the ADC he cannot turn back and challenge the same. The order of the ADC would be final. In support of his contention, learned counsel would place his reliance upon the decisions rendered by the Supreme Court in the matters of Union of India vs. Harnam Singh, AIR 1993 SC 1367 and Union of India and Others vs. Kantilal Hemantram Pandya, AIR 1995 SC 1349.

6. I have heard learned counsel appearing for the parties at length and the perused the documents.

7. Admittedly, the facts of the case show that the petitioner was taken into service in the year 1984 and as per Annexure-P/7, which was given on 3-8-1995 the petitioner requested for correction of his date of birth on the ground that inadvertently the same is recorded as 21-1-1954 instead of 21-1-1959. However, it appears that it did not yield any result and eventually in the year 2013 the petitioner approached