Case: Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. and Ors Vs. Chhota Birsa Uranw

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 B2. 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 then3. 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 respondents 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, 19504. 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, fathers 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, 20065. The Project Officer vide order dated August 2, 2006 intimated the respondent that he is to superannuate from February 28, 2007. Aggrieved by the same, the respondent filed a writ bearing W.P. (S) No. 496 of 2007 for quashing of the order of superannuation by the Project Officer on the grounds that the date of superannuation has been incorrectly calculated by relying on the erroneous date of birth which should have been rectified in terms of the NCWA III, which provided that the Mining Sardar Certificate and the School Leaving Certificate must be treated as authentic documents by the employer as proof of the date of birth of the employee. The appellant company without challenging the genuineness of the same countered the respondent on the grounds that the Form B register was a conclusive proof of date of birth as it was verified by the signature of the employee being the respondent; and having accepted the entry then, the respondent is not entitled to raise any dispute after twenty years and at the fag end of his service. The High Court while allowing the writ determined that the respondent did not raise such a claim at the fag end of his career, rather such a claim was made in 1987 itself and the appellant company had failed to respond suitably to the dispute raised by the respondent. Thereby, the Court directed the appellant company to conduct an enquiry on the basis of the certificates produced by the respondent and to effectively communicate to the respondent the decision taken together with the reasons assigned within three months of the passing of the order6. Aggrieved, the appellant company preferred a Letters Patent Appeal, the order in which is impugned herein. The High Court dismissed the appeal having found no merit in the same in light of the clauses in Implementation Instruction No. 76

Court's reasoning:
13. We give due regard to the sensitive nature of date of birth disputes and fully agree with the approach laid down in R. Kirubakaran Case (supra). However, with an aim to prevent the cascading inconveniences caused by a change of date of birth, a wronged employee should not be denied of his rights especially when he has adhered to the procedure laid down and attempted to avoid litigation by resorting to in-house mechanisms. Public Corporations/Departments, should not benefit from their own omission of duty. In the present case, the appellant-company failed to follow the procedure as laid down in the Implementation Instruction. It is the appellants omission and not the inaction of the respondent which led to the dispute being raised in the courts at such a delayed stage. The attitude of such corporations wherein to avoid the rectification of a date of birth, litigation is unnecessarily prolonged just because they have number of resources at their command, goes against the grain of equity and duty towards society at large14. As noted by us, the respondent in 1987 on coming to know of the wrong recording of his date of birth in his service records from the nomination form sought rectification. Therefore, such rectification was not sought at the fag end of his service. We have further noticed that the High Court duly verified the genuineness of the school leaving certificate on the basis of a supplementary affidavit filed by Shri Dilip Kumar Mishra, legal inspector of the appellant company on September 6, 2010 before the High Court. It has been admitted in the said supplementary affidavit that the school leaving certificate has been verified and has been found to be genuine. We have further noticed that Implementation Instruction No.76 clause (i)(a) permits rectification of the date of birth by treating the date of birth mentioned in the school leaving certificate to be correct provided such certificates were issued by the educational institution prior to the date of employment. The question of interpreting the words were issued was correctly interpreted, in our opinion, by the High Court which interpreted the said words for the purpose of safeguarding against misuse of the certificates for the purpose of increasing the period of employment. The High Court correctly interpreted and meant that these words will not apply where the school records containing the date of birth were available long before the starting of the employment. The date of issue of certificate actually intends to refer to the date with the relevant record in the school on the basis of which the certificate has been issued. A school leaving certificate is usually issued at the time of leaving the school by the student, subsequently a copy thereof also can be obtained where a student misplaces his said school leaving certificate and applies for a fresh copy thereof. The issuance of fresh copy cannot change the relevant record which is prevailing in the records of the school from the date of the admission and birth date of the student, duly entered in the records of the school.