CHAMPA KAMIN Vs. EMPLOYEES IN RELATION TO MANAGEMENT OF TEGULMARI COLLIERY,UNDER SIJUA AREA OF BCCL, DHANBAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal has been preferred against the order dated 13.5.2008 passed by the learned Single Judge in W.P. (L) No. 5019 of 2003, by which the learned Single Judge had been pleased to allow the writ petition preferred by the respondent -employer by setting aside the award passed by the Central Industrial Tribunal, Dhanbad which had directed the Management to assess the age of the concerned workman -Smt. Champa Kamin, at the fag end of her service. From the facts recorded in the impugned order as also in the award passed by the Industrial Tribunal, it is clear that the appellant -workman had not complained against the entry in regard to her date of birth in the service record as her date of birth at the time of entry into the service was recorded on the basis of an oral assertion to which she never objected and only after 25 years of service she came up with a case that her age be assessed by a medical board. A Reference in this regard was therefore initiated and although the Reference was decided in favour of the appellant -workman and the Tribunal appears to have granted the relief to the appellant -workman, the same was granted without any evidence to the effect that her date of birth had been wrongly recorded.

(2.) LEARNED counsel for the employer -respondent invited the attention of this Court to the fact that although the appellant raised a dispute regarding the entry of her date of birth in the service record, the fact of the matter is that in pursuance to a Circular issued by the employer -BCCL, the date of birth was communicated to the appellant and thereafter objections also were invited from all concerned to the effect that if any correction was required, the same be raised at the earliest. This notice was issued to the appellant way back in the year 1987 but she did not raise any objection and yet a plea has been raised on her behalf before the court below that she had been taken unawares regarding the entry of her date of birth, which has no legal basis. The stand of the respondent -BCCL thus gets fortified by the fact that she has raised a dispute regarding correction of her date of birth for the first time after 25 years of her service.