Judgment:
Vineet Saran, J.
1. The petitioner is an employee of the Respondent-U. P. State Sugar Corporation Limited, Amroha Unit, District Jyotiba Phule Nagar. The controversy in the present writ petition is with regard to the date of birth of the petitioner. Admittedly in the service record of the petitioner maintained by the respondent-Corporation the date of birth of the petitioner was always shown as 8.5.1946 and the date of his appointment as 8.12.1967. The controversy arose when in the service record of the petitioner his date of birth had been corrected by the respondent-Corporation on 18.5.1998 to be 19 years as in the year 1963 which, according to the respondent-Corporation, was recorded in the provident fund record maintained in the office of Provident Fund Commissioner. According to the respondent-Corporation, on the basis of the corrected date of birth, the petitioner would retire on 30.10.2004, on completion of 60 years of age, regarding which a notice had been issued to the petitioner on 27.8.2004, which has also been now challenged in this writ petition by an amendment application which has been allowed. Earlier also vide order dated 31.12.2003/1.1.2004 passed by Chief Manager, U.P. State Sugar Corporation Limited, Unit Amroha, district J. P. Nagar, respondent No. 2, it had been ordered that the petitioner would retire on 30.10.2004. The said order has also been impugned in this writ petition. A further prayer has been made for a direction to the respondents to retire the petitioner only on 8.5.2006 in accordance with his date of birth (i.e., 8.5.1946) as has been entered in the service book of the petitioner maintained by the Corporation and which was also, according to the petitioner, his date of birth recorded in the School Leaving Certificate. It has thus been prayed that the petitioner be permitted to remain in service and be given all benefits till 8.5.2006.
2. I have heard Sri Harish Chandra Dwivedi, learned counsel for the petitioner as well as learned standing counsel for the State of U. P. and Sri Rajendra Kumar Srivastava, learned counsel appearing for the respondent- U. P. State Sugar Corporation and have perused the record.
3. Initially the controversy with regard to the date of birth of the petitioner arose in 1992 when the petitioner moved an application before the Corporation to give him a certificate regarding his date of birth on the basis of his provident fund record. The Labour Welfare Officer of the Corporation issued a certificate on 2.7.1992 certifying that as per the provident fund record the date of birth of the petitioner, who was working in the Corporation, was 2.11.1955. The said certificate had admittedly been issued by an officer of the respondent-Corporation. Thereafter it appears that on the basis of the said certificate the petitioner moved an application on 12.12.2003 requesting the respondent-Corporation to correct his date of birth as shown in the aforesaid certificate dated 2.7.1992. In response the General Manager of the Corporation issued the order dated 31.12.2003/1.1.2004 stating that since as per the record maintained by the Provident Fund Commissioner, the date of birth of the petitioner was 19 years as on 31.10.1963, his retirement would be governed by the said date, which according to the respondents would be 30.10.2004. Earlier also, as has been stated by the respondents in the counter-affidavit, an enquiry was instituted in the year 1997 with regard to the date of birth of the petitioner in which order had been passed on 16.5.1998 on the basis of which on 18.5.1998, the date of birth of the petitioner had been corrected in the service book of the petitioner maintained by the Respondent Corporation. No record with regard to proceedings relating to the change of date of birth have however been annexed with the counter-affidavit. However, a supplementary counter-affidavit has been filed today during the course of hearing in which certain documents had been filed which shall be referred to subsequently, although it may be recorded that the same has now been filed after filing of the rejoinder-affidavit and when the case had already been heard on 28.10.2004 and the matter was posted for further hearing today and no such time for filing such affidavit had been granted to the respondents. However, I shall refer to the documents filed along with the supplementary counter-affidavit also.
4. Learned counsel for the respondent-Corporation has submitted that as per the standing orders, which were made applicable on 27.9.1988, any correction regarding date of birth in the service record of an employee of the Corporation could be got done within a period of one year from the date of enforcement of the standing orders. Thus, according to the respondent-Corporation, the amendment; correction in the service record with regard to the date of birth of the petitioner could be got done only till 27.9.1989 and no such correction could be made subsequently. In September, 1989, the date of birth of the petitioner was admittedly entered as 8.5.1946. The correction has subsequently been made by the respondent-Corporation itself only on 18.5.1998 on the basis of an order dated 16.5.1998, which is said to have been passed by the General Manager of the Corporation. The said order has been filed as Annexure-SCA 5 to the supplementary counter-affidavit filed today. The order of the General Manager is merely by way of endorsement made on a report dated 21.11.1997 which had been submitted by the Assistant Administrative Officer of the Corporation. In the said report it has been stated that the recorded date of birth of the petitioner in his service book stood as 8.5.1946, which was also his date of birth as shown in the School Leaving Certificate filed by the petitioner. In the said report it had been added that as per the report of the office of the Provident Fund Commissioner in the column of date of birth, it had been mentioned as 19 years in 1963 and thus the same should be taken as the correct date of birth. Any change in the date of birth of the petitioner made just a few years before his retirement would not be Justified specially when the date of birth of the petitioner was throughout entered as 8.5.1946 in the records of the Corporation maintained for the last 30 years. Even otherwise the date of appointment of the petitioner as per the service record maintained by the respondent-Corporation continues to be 8.12.1967 and even after the change in the date of birth of the petitioner the said date of appointment has not been changed. Thus, it does not appear to be plausible or likely that when the appointment of the petitioner itself had been made in the respondent-Corporation on 8.12.1967, the date of birth of the petitioner should be corrected as 19 years as in the year 1963. Even from a perusal of the order dated 31.12.2003/1.1.2004 which has been impugned in this writ petition, it appears that the record, on the basis of which the oate of birth has been corrected, was signed by the then General Manager of Kundan Sugar Mills, Amroha and its Provident Fund in-charge. It has nowhere been stated at any stage that any such document which is being relied upon was signed by the petitioner himself. The document which relates to the provident fund record has been filed along with the writ petition, a perusal of which would show the only signatures are those of the aforesaid two authorities and not of the petitioner. Even otherwise, in my view, when according to the Standing Orders of the Corporation, the date of birth could have been corrected only within one year from the date of its enforcement, i.e., till September, 1989, the same could not have been done thereafter even at the instance of the employer, when the same could not be done at the instance of the employee.
5. With regard to change in the date of birth in the service record of an employee, the learned counsel for the respondent has placed reliance on a decision of this Court rendered in the case of U. P. State Sugar Corporation v. Deputy Labour Commissioner, Moradabad and Anr., 2002 (2) AWC 1702. The said decision relates to change in date of birth as per the standing orders wherein it has been held that the correction in the date of birth could be done within one year of its enforcement. In the present case, the standing orders having come into force in September, 1988, the correction could have been made only upto September, 1989. Thus, in my view, ratio of the said decision would not help the respondents. Similarly the other decision relied upon by the learned counsel for the respondent rendered in the case of U. P. State Sugar Corporation Limited v. Ambika Singh and Anr., 1999 (1) AWC 887 would also not help the respondents as the same also relates to change of date of birth as per standing orders.
6. Accordingly, I have no hesitation in holding that the date of birth of the petitioner as per the service record maintained by the Corporation ought to be 8.5.1946, which was the date of birth initially recorded at the time of his appointment and continued to be so for more than 30 years and was also the same as per the School Leaving Certificate and there was no occasion for the respondent-Corporation to change the same without there being any cogent ground or reason for the same. The order dated 16.5.1998, on the basis of which the change has been made, also does not give any valid reason for making such change as it only endorses the report of the Assistant Administrative Officer in which both things have been stated, i.e., the date of birth of the petitioner as per his records is 8.5.1946. which is also the same as shown In the School Leaving Certificate, but in the end of the said report it has been stated that the provident fund record shows that he was 19 years in the year 1963. Without recording any reason of his own, the General Manager of the Corporation has just accepted the report on the basis of which the correction has been made, which, in the given facts and circumstances could not have been done also because the same had admittedly been made much after one year of the enforcement of the standing orders. Thus, the notice dated 27.8.2004 requiring the petitioner to retire on 30.10.2004 and also the order dated 31.12.2003/1.1.2004, wherein it has been held that the petitioner would be treated as 19 years as in the year 1963 both are liable to be quashed and are hereby set aside. The petitioner shall be permitted to continue in service till the age of 60 years on the basis of his date of birth as had been initially recorded in his service book, which is 8.5.1946, and he shall also be entitled to all consequential benefits.
7. The writ petition is, accordingly, allowed. No order as to cost.