Employees After Long Time Cannot Seek Alteration Of Date Of Birth Towards Fag End Of Career: SC

The Supreme Court recently observed that employees cannot wake up from their slumber after a long time and seek alteration of date of birth towards the fag end of their career.

The two-Judge Bench of Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice Pankaj Mithal said, “… this is not a case where we are persuaded to invoke our jurisdiction under Article 136 of the Constitution of India. … we clarify the law that the employees cannot wake up from their slumber after a long time and seek alteration of date of birth towards the fag end of their career.”

The Bench was dealing with a Special Leave Petition filed by South Eastern Coalfields Ltd. challenging the order passed by the Division Bench of the Bombay High Court wherein it allowed the alteration of the date of birth of an employee.

A.S.G. Aishwarya Bhati and Advocate T.G. Narayanan Nair represented the petitioners while Advocate Awanish Kumar and Advocate S.P. Dubey represented the respondent.

In this case, the date of birth of the respondent i.e., the employee was correctly recorded at the time of his appointment in the year 1963 but the same got altered without his knowledge. He came to know about such an alteration afterward in the year 2001.

When the respondent started corresponding with the petitioners, a letter was issued by the Deputy Regional Manager and the letter recorded the fact that the date of birth indicated in the service record was scored off.

The Apex Court in view of the facts and circumstances of this matter noted, “It is true that any request for alternation of date of birth cannot be made after a long delay and especially towards the end of the career of an employee. But this case stands on a slightly different footing.”

The Court further noted that to a specific averment made by the respondent in his writ petition, there is no categorical denial about the letter.

“In any case, the respondent has continued in service and has reached superannuation on 14.02.2023 and he is due to continue only for a period of ten more days”, the Court asserted.

Accordingly, the Court dismissed the SLP.

Cause Title- The General Manager South Eastern Coalfields Ltd. & Ors. v. Avinash Kumar Tiwari

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