An employee cannot challenge their recorded date of birth shortly before superannuation, as established by Supreme Court precedents.

JUDGMENT :

ANANDA SEN, J.

The petitioner is challenging Annexure-6 to the writ petition. The Annexure-6 is the information given to the petitioner by his employer that he is due to superannuate with effect from 31.10.2022 as his date of birth is recorded in the service record as 08.10.1962.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that he cannot be superannuated on 31.10.2022 as his date of birth has been wrongly mentioned as 08.10.1962 in the service records in place of 19.04.1967.

3. There is a dispute regarding recording of date of birth of the employee. Annexure-1 to the writ application is the service excerpts which was provided to the petitioner on 10.07.1987. In the service excerpts in the column of date of birth of the petitioner it was mentioned as 23 years as on 08.10.1985 and his date of appointment is January, 1986, the said document bears the signature of this petitioner. Petitioner did not object such recording.

4. From this document, it is clear that in 1987 itself at least on 10.07.1987, the petitioner knew that his date of birth has been recorded as 23 years as on 08.10.1985 which will be sometime in the year 1962.

5. The petitioner heavily relying upon the Pan Card and Aadhar Card in support of his contention that his date of birth is 19.04.1967. Pan Card and Aadhar Card is not a document in proof of the date of birth. In this case the petitioner entered in service and at the time of entering in service his date of birth was mentioned as 1962 which the petitioner did not challenge. The petitioner filed this writ application only in the year 2022, after receiving the superannuation notice though he had knowledge about the recording in service record at least from 1987.

6. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Eastern Coalfields Limited versus Ram Samugh Yadav and Others reported in (2020) 3 SCC 421 held that the issue of date of birth raised one year prior to superannuation is not justified when in the year 1987 opportunity was granted to the employees to raise the dispute. The issue is similar here. In the year 1987 the petitioner was given the service excerpts which he has signed but did not raise any dispute in respect of date of birth which was recorded. Be noted that in this case the petitioner is an employee of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. which is a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd. and the case referred to above is of Eastern Coalfields Ltd. which is also a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd., and service regulations are same.

7. Further in case of Bharat Coking Coal Limited versus Shyam Kishore Singh reported in (2020) 3 SCC 411 the Hon’ble Supreme Court held that in the fag end of the service, the date of birth cannot be corrected.

8. Considering these two judgments and the facts of this case, I am not inclined to grant any relief to the petitioners, accordingly, this writ application is dismissed.