- (1.) THIS appeal is filed by respondent No. 1 in W.P.(S) No. 2714 of 2001. The writ petitioner approached this Court challenging the Order Annexure -16/A and the covering letter Annexure -16 issued to him by the Coal India Limited informing him that his claim that he should be continued in service after the 1st of July, 2001 cannot be accepted, since according to the relevant records, his date of birth was 6.6.1941 and he attained the age of superannuation on 1st July, 2001. His contention in the writ petition was that he has raised a dispute regarding his date of birth as entered in the records of the Company and has filed an earlier writ petition in this Court as C.W.J.C. No. 3771 of 1999 (R) and this Court had directed that the matter be considered by the Review Committee. According to the Writ Petitioner, before the Review Committee, he had produced an Admit Card and a School Leaving Certificate, issued by the School in which he had studied and going by that, his date of birth was 21.7.1945. The Review Committee, according to the writ petitioner, recommended that the date of birth of the writ petitioner be accepted as 21.7.1945. But the concerned authority in the Company found that going by the Statutory Register and the overman certificate which was issued to the petitioner on 4.6.1974, his date of birth was 6.6.1941 and not 21.7.1945 and that the entries were made by the writ petitioner himself in his own handwriting and, in that situation, the claim of the writ petitioner that his date of birth be treated as 21.7.1945, cannot be accepted. It also found that the subsequently procured documents from a school cannot be relied on.
(2.) IN the writ petition, the writ petitioner mainly contended that the recommendation of the Review Committee based on the certificate issued by the School produced by him should have been accepted and the date of birth should have been accepted as 21.7.1945. On behalf of the Company, the appellant before us, a counter affidavit was filed reiterating the reasons given in Annexure 16/A and seeking to support the decision taken by the Company. The learned Single Judge directed the Company to produce the relevant records. On the day the matter stood posted for hearing, it appears that counsel for the Company was not present when the case was called and the records were not shown to the Court and only for that reason, the learned Judge allowed the writ petition, quashed the orders Annexure -16/A and directed the Company to treat the date of birth of the petitioner as 21.7.1945 as claimed by him. Strangely, the learned Judge himself has quoted the substantial reason given in Annexure -16/A for not accepting the case of the petitioner in the Judgment. But again strangely, the learned Judge has said nothing about any error in that part of the order Annexure - 16/A, which was being challenged by the petitioner before this Court, Drawing of an adverse inference from non -production of documents is different from allowing a writ petition merely on the basis of such non -production. In spite of the non -production it was the duty of the learned Judge to have considered the claim of the petitioner and considered the question whether there was any error apparent on the face of the record in Annexure - 16/A order. Of course in that process, the learned Judge might have been justified in drawing an adverse inference against the case of the Company. But a non -production of documents by itself cannot be made the sole foundation for presumably holding that the communication impugned suffered from an error apparent on the face of the record.
(3.) WE are therefore of the view that the learned Judge was not justified in allowing the writ petition in the manner, which he did. We find that Annexure - 16/A has given very valid reasons for not accepting the case of the petitioner. The writ petitioner raised a dispute regarding age only sometime in the year 1999 just two years before his date of superannuation. This was clearly a belated stage to raise a dispute regarding age. That such belated raising of dispute regarding age of superannuation cannot be entertained is clear from the decision of the Supreme Court in G.M., Bharat Coking Coal Limited V/s. Shiv Kumar Dushad, 2000(7) Supreme 380. That apart, when the authentic documents showed the date of birth of the Writ Petitioner as 6.6.1941 and the overman certificate issued on 4.6.1974 by the office of the Director General, Mines Safety, Dhanbad under the Coal Mines Regulation, 1957 also showed the date of birth as 6.6.1941, there is hardly any reason for going behind such authentic documents of the Company to find, a case for the writ petitioner. Here in this case, we find another significant fact. From the service book relating to the writ petitioner, which was made available to us as per our direction in this appeal, it is seen that the writ petitioner had shown that his wife was born in the year 1944. Now his claim is that he was born only on 21.7.1945. Normally, otherwise than exceptional circumstances, our social practice is to marry a girl younger than oneself. Therefore, the case of the writ petitioner that he was born in the year 1945, which means that he was younger than his wife, is prima facie, not acceptable. Of course, this is in addition to the fact that overman certificate, in our view has to be taken as conclusive proof regarding such employment in mines, the same being a statutory document. The certificates from the School were acquired long later and are clearly not enough to support the case of the petitioner.;