CIDCO v. Vasudha Gorakhnath Mandevlekar , (SC) BS198161
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

Before:- S.B. Sinha and Asok Kumar Ganguly, JJ.

Civil Appeal No. 3615 of 2009 [Arising out of SLP (Civil) No. 20794 of 2008]. D/d. 15.5.2009.

CIDCO - Appellant

Versus

Vasudha Gorakhnath Mandevlekar - Respondent

For the Appellant :- Mr. A.S. Bhasme, Advocate.

For the Respondent :- Mr. Vinay Navare and Ms. Abha R. Sharma, Advocates.

Constitution of India, 1950, Article 16 - Correction of Date of Birth - Corporation holding date of birth of employee as 2.10.1948 on the basis of form submitted by employee giving details of her date of birth wherein she gave date of birth as 2.10.1948 - There was interpolation in the form - Date was changed to 2.10.1950 - Employee produced birth certificate issued by Municipal Council and graduation certificate wherein date of birth was recorded as 2.10.1950 - Held, death and birth register maintained by statutory authorities raises a presumption of correctness - Such certificate would prevail over any entry made in school register. [AIR 1988 Supreme Court 1796 relied upon].

[Paras 14, 15, 19 and 20]

Case Referred :-

Birad Mal Singhvi v. Anand Purohit AIR 1988 Supreme Court 1796.

JUDGMENT

S.B. Sinha, J. - Leave granted.

2. The Date of Birth of the respondent is in question in this appeal which arises out of a judgment and order dated 17.04.2008 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay in Writ Petition No. 6962 of 2006.

3. Respondent herein joined the services of the appellant - Corporation on 18.01.1971. She disclosed her date of birth to be 2.10.1950.

4. According to the appellant - corporation, in the year 1975, in response to a memo dated 25.07.1975, the respondent submitted a form giving the details of her date of birth, educational qualification and experience wherein the date of birth was typed as 2.10.1948. However, the year was corrected in handwriting as 1950 by way of interpolation.

5. Respondent was posted in the Personnel Department in various capacities during the period from 14.01.1980 to 6.07.1988.

6. On 16.01.1997, a letter was issued to the respondent for production of copies of school leaving certificate, but she did not submit the same. Again, an office order was issued on 26.02.2004 and 16.06.2004 asking the respondent to submit the documents. However, the respondent did not submit copies of the school leaving certificate and claimed that her original certificates including the school leaving certificate had been misplaced.

7. On 11.04.2005, the respondent was again asked to produce the required documents and the respondent by a letter dated 19.04.2005 informed that she had submitted all the documents at the time of joining the service and these documents had been misplaced.

8. However, the respondent submitted a copy of the birth certificate dated 3.04.2000 issued by the Chief Officer, Panvel Nagar Parishad. The said certificate shows the date of birth of the respondent to be 2.10.1950 as recorded in the register of births maintained by the Parishad.

9. Respondent has also produced various documents issued by the appellant - corporation, viz., seniority list, gradation list, retirement list, etc. In all these documents, the date of birth of the respondent was shown as 2.10.1950.

10. The Manager (Personnel) of the appellant - Corporation by an order dated 26.12.2007 held the date of birth of the respondent as 2.10.1948. For arriving at the said conclusion, the appellant - Corporation took into consideration various documents, including application made at the time of admission to the school for the respondent and her sisters, the school leaving certificates of the producer and her sisters, the admission register given by the Head Mistress of the School indicating the date of birth record of the respondent, etc. In all these documents, the date of birth of the respondent was shown as 2.10.1950. The Manager (Personnel) in support of his order dated 26.12.2007 assigned the following reasons :

In the said order, it was held :

11. Aggrieved by and dissatisfied by the said order, the respondent filed a Writ Petition before the High Court of Judicature at Bombay which by reason of the impugned judgment has been allowed, observing :

12. Mr. Bhasme, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant, would submit :

13. Mr. Vinay Navare, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent, on the other hand, urged:

14. We have noticed hereinbefore that what for the so-called charge of interpolation of service records in regard to the year of birth, the office records categorically shown that the date of birth of the respondent was 2.10.1950. A large number of documents have been produced in support of the said contention by the respondent. We may notice some of them. In the gradation list of Field Officer as on 1.4.1986 issued on 11.4.1986, the respondent's name figured at serial No. 17 showing his date of birth to be 2.10.1950. The same date of birth has been shown in the seniority list as on 1.4.1987 published on 11.4.1986 (sic) at serial No. 16. Yet again, in the retirement list of CIDCO employees, the respondent's date of birth has been shown to be 2.10.1950.

15. A list of employees retiring in the year 2006 was published on 30.9.2005 wherein the respondent's name did not figure. In fact, it was shown that in other documents, the year of her superannuation was shown to be 2008. Appellant had issued a memo. The respondent replied thereto by a letter dated 19.4.2005 wherein she categorically mentioned that she had produced the copy of the birth certificate issued by the Panvel Municipal Council on many occasions. She had also produced copy of the graduation certificate and birth certificate from the said Council. She, therefore, requested the appellant to accept her date of birth as 2.10.1950.

Although criticism has been made by Shri Bhasme in regard to the certificate issued by the Panvel Municipal Council on the premise that it having itself been constituted in the year 1976, could not have issued the said certificate; we may notice that the Municipal Council in its letter dated 28.12.2007 issued to the Manager (Labour) CIDCO, not only disclosed the date of birth of the respondent but also her other sisters brothers. Veracity and/or genuineness of the said certificate is not in question.

16. Mr. Navare furthermore appears to be right in contending that although the Municipal Council came into being in 1976, the statutory records of birth and death used to be maintained by its predecessor, the Gram Panchayat. The said statement appears to be correct as would appear from a letter dated 3.11.2006 by the Panvel Municipal Council addressed to the Manager (Labour) of the appellant stating that the said certificate is issued as per the original record of deaths and birth with the Municipal Council.

17. It is of some significance to notice that the appellant for the first time, by its office letter dated 4.10.2006 stated that the employees mentioned therein including the respondent would retire in the month of October 2006. We have been taken through the order dated 26.2.2007 passed by the Manager (Personnel) of the appellant holding the date of birth of the respondent as 2.10.1948 which runs into 23 pages.

We may, however, notice that the reasons assigned by the said authority are wholly unacceptable. Some of the reasons assigned by him are perverse.

18. Only because the respondent for some time had been working in the personnel department, the same by itself, in our opinion, cannot be held to constitute sufficient proof to show that an interpolation was made at her instance particularly when the certificate issued by the Panvel Municipal Council was available with the Corporation as far back as in the year 1976. If an allegation is made that a lower grade employee was responsible for withholding the said document from the higher authorities, proof therefor was necessary. It is wholly unlikely that the seniority list of the officers which are prepared by the higher authorities would contain the same mistake as purported to have been committed by the lower authorities.

19. Appellant prima facie is bound by its own records. If any fraud is alleged, it must be proved. Only because there appears to be a so-called interpolation, the same by itself would not lead to a conclusion that the respondent had supplied a wrong date of birth.

20. The Deaths and Births register maintained by the statutory authorities raises a presumption of correctness. Such entries made in the statutory registers are admissible in evidence in terms of section 35 of the Indian Evidence Act. It would prevail over an entry made in the school register, particularly, in absence of any proof that same was recorded at the instance of the guardian of the respondent. [See Birad Mal Singhvi v. Anand Purohit [AIR 1988 Supreme Court 1796]

21. For the reasons aforementioned, we do not find any merit in this appeal which is dismissed accordingly with costs. Counsel's fee assessed at Rs. 50,000/-.

Appeal dismissed.