- (1.) This is an appeal against the judgment of the learned single Judge dismissing the writ petition filed by the appellant by which he challenged the determination by the Deputy Labour Commissioner, Allahabad, of the correct dates of birth of respondents Nos. 5 to 8 who were the workmen of the appellant company.
(2.) Clause (LL) of the Standing Orders which relates to the determination of the age of retirement of the workmen reads thus : "(1) A workman may be retired from service on reaching the age of superannuation which shall be 58 years. (2) The Provident Fund Records of the factory specifying the workman's age should, to begin with, be taken as the reliable record of the age of a workman for purposes of retirement. (3) This record of age will stand modified as may be warranted by the following: (a) date of birth as given in the School Leaving Certificate or the High School Certificate. (b) date of birth as certified by a Municipal Board, Cantonment Board, a Notified Area or a Town Area Committee. (c) An Insurance Policy taken before November 1, 1960. (d) Junior High School (VIII Class) Certificate (to be applicable in the case of future entrants only). Provided that (i) where the date, month and the year of birth of a workman are recorded in Provident Fund Records, the date of birth as given in the Provident Fund records shall be taken as final; (ii) Where only the month and year of birth are given, the date will be taken as the 1st of that month; and (iii) Where the Provident Fund record of the workman does not specify the date or month of birth, in that case the 1st November of the year shall be deemed to be the date of retirement; (4) The management shall give at least one month's notice to a workman before retiring him and during this period, the workman shall have the right to represent to the Labour Commissioner, U. P. Kanpur. Such representation shall normally be disposed of within a period of six weeks of the date of receipt of representation from the workman and the orders passed by the Labour Commissioner U. P. or, if he so directs, by the Additional Labour Commissioner or Joint Labour Commissioner or the Deputy Labour Commissioner (IR) regarding the question of age of the workman shall be final and shall not be questioned by any party before any Court. In case the Labour Commissioner, U. P. or the Additional Labour Commissioner or the Joint Labour Commissioner or the Deputy Labour Commissioner (IR); as the case may be, allows the representation, the employers shall reinstate the workman immediately on receipt of the said orders and also pay to him full wages for the period of involuntary employment. (5) In the event of a workman retiring during the off season, he shall be paid retaining allowance up to the date of retirement. N. B.The factory and the union (s) concerned are free to settle the question of rectification of age by mutual negotiation. Notices were given by the appellant to the four respondents and some other workmen intimating to them that they would be retired according to the ages mentioned in the Provident Fund records relating to each of them. The four respondents made representations to the Labour Commissioner, U. P. The Labour Commissioner directed the Deputy Labour Commissioner to dispose of the representations. Before the Deputy Labour Commissioner, the four respondents produced copies of the birth registers from the Police Stations to show that the dates of birth mentioned in the Provident Fund records were not correct and also to establish their correct dates of birth. The Deputy Labour Commissioner accepted the entries in these birth registers and on their basis corrected the age of each of the four respondents. Against the order of the Deputy Labour Commissioner, the appellant filed a writ petition in this Court. The only argument of the appellant was that the entries in the birth registers of the Police Stations were not admissible and could not be looked into for determining the correct age of the workman concerned. The argument was based on clause (3) of the Standing Orders and was to the effect that the documents mentioned in clause (3) alone could be looked into and no other documents could be looked into for this purpose. The learned Single Judge did not accept this argument and dismissed the writ petition Hence this appeal.
(3.) Before us, learned counsel relied upon the Judgment of Satish Chandra, J. in Civil Misc. Writ No. 2803 of 1969, M/s. Cawnpore Sugar Works Limited, Kanpur V/s. The Labour Commissioner, U. P., Kanpur decided on August 5, 1970 (All) in which the learned Judge held that only documents mentioned in Clause (3) could be utilised for amending the age mentioned in the Provident Fund records. Having heard learned counsel for the parties, we regret our inability to concur with the view taken by the learned Judge.;