UNION OF INDIA OTHERS Vs. KANTILAL HEMATRAM PANDYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted

(2.) The respondent entered Railway service on 1-7-1955 giving his date of birth as 6-9-1930 at the time of entry into the service . That date of birth was entered in his service record. On the basis of the said date of birth, the Railway Administration issued orders on 5-2-1988/8-3-1988 for the retirement of the respondent w.e.f. 30th September, 1988, on attaining the age of 58 years. The respondent protested. According to him, his correct date of birth was 4-9-1934 and not 6-9-1930 and he was liable to be retired from service only on 30th September, 1992. The order of the Railway Administration directing retirement of the respondent with effect from 30th September, 1988 was challenged by him through OA No. 283/87 before the Central Administrative Tribunal Ahemadabad. By its order dated 26-8-1988 the Tribunal partly allowed the application directing as under:

(3.) Learned counsel for the appellant while assailing the impugned order of the Tribunal submitted that it had laboured unnecessarily to get out of the binding Judgment of this Court in Union of India v. Harnam Singh (1993) 2 SCC 162 which was fully attracted to the facts and circumstances of the case. Learned counsel submitted that the date of birth which had been recorded in the service record of the respondent was 6-9-1930 and that till almost the eve of his retirement the respondent took no steps to have the recorded date of birth altered, even though opportunity had been granted to all literate employees of the Railways to have their date of birth altered, in case the same had been recorded wrongly, till 31-7-1993 and as such the Tribunal should have refused the alteration of the date of birth of the appellant, which had been claimed after an inordinate and unexplained long delay of more than quarter of a century.