The Company Had The Wrong Birth Year. It Cost Him Four Years.

The short answer

The Chhattisgarh High Court set aside a premature retirement notice and held the correct date of birth to be 20 November 1966 rather than 8 November 1962. Original, contemporaneous and independently corroborated records — in particular Form-B, which the employer held and did not produce — outweighed a single disputed entry in the service book. The employer was directed to correct the record and give consequential benefits.

What changed

The original record beats a later entry. Form-B and the documents certified by the management itself carried more weight than one disputed service book entry.
Non-production tells against the custodian. The service book and the original Form-B were admittedly in the employer's custody, and the employer did not produce them.
An early objection defeats the delay argument. The worker had objected to the wrong entry back in 1987, so the claim was not a fresh one raised at the end of service.
“Fag end of service” is an argument, not a bar. It did not succeed here because the record showed a contemporaneous objection and documents that had never been answered.

Court: High Court of Chhattisgarh at Bilaspur
Bench: Justice Sachin Singh Rajput
Case: WPS No. 7648 of 2022
Decided: 24 August 2026
Outcome: Retirement notice set aside; correction of date of birth directed with consequential benefits

What happened

A workman with a coal company had 8 November 1962 recorded in his service book. On that date he was due to retire on 30 November 2022, and a notice to that effect was issued on 1 June 2022. He said the entry was wrong and that he was born on 20 November 1966 — a difference of four years of service, pay and pension.

He relied on the original Form-B and on school and other records, several of them maintained or certified by the management itself. He also pointed out that he had objected to the incorrect entry as far back as 16 August 1987.

What the employer argued

The company said the petition was filed on 31 October 2022, barely a month before the retirement date, and that a request to change a date of birth at the very end of service cannot be entertained. It said correction is not a matter of right.

It also said the question involved disputed facts unsuited to writ jurisdiction, alleging overwriting in the records and discrepancies in the school certificates, including doubt about when they were issued.

Its sharpest point was arithmetical: if the correct year were 1966, the worker would have been under 18 when he was appointed in November 1984.

Why the worker won

The Court found the contemporaneous and independently corroborated documents established 20 November 1966, and that a single disputed entry could not prevail over the original Form-B and the records the management had itself maintained and certified.

The 1987 objection mattered. It meant there was no unexplained delay and no acquiescence — the worker had not sat on the point and produced it only when retirement loomed.

On the age-at-appointment argument, the Court held that whether the appointment was lawful when made was simply not the subject of this writ petition, and rejected the contention.

The retirement notice dated 1 June 2022 was set aside. The employer was directed to correct the service record and the petition was allowed with consequential benefits.

Who argued it

Appearances as recorded in the judgment of the Court.

Frequently asked

Can a date of birth in the service book be corrected near retirement?

It is difficult, and courts often refuse. It succeeded here because the worker had objected in 1987, and because the original record and documents certified by the employer itself supported his case.

What if the employer refuses to produce the original record?

Say so expressly. Here the service book and the original Form-B were admittedly in the employer's custody and were not produced, and the Court treated the contemporaneous documents as establishing the correct date.

Is a date of birth dispute a disputed question of fact that a writ court will not decide?

Not always. Where the documents are contemporaneous, independently corroborated and largely the employer's own, a writ court can and does decide it, as this judgment shows.

What are consequential benefits?

The pay, service and retiral benefits that follow from being treated as still in service. Here the correction moved the retirement date about four years later.

If your employer has the wrong date of birth on record

Object in writing the moment you see it, and keep the acknowledgement. An objection on the file years earlier is what defeats the delay defence later.
Identify the original record — the form filled at entry into service — and say plainly who holds it. If the employer holds it and does not produce it, say so in the pleadings.
Collect documents the employer itself maintained or certified. Records the employer created are harder for it to disown than your school certificate.
Expect the age-at-appointment argument if the correction makes you younger, and answer it by pointing out that the validity of the appointment is a different question from the accuracy of the record.
Do not wait for the retirement notice. File early, because the employer's best argument is that you came at the fag end of service.

Authorities the Court relied on

, 2014 AIR SCW 2634 — Determination of date of birth on the basis of reliable contemporaneous records.
, (2005) 12 SCC 201 — Relied on by the employer for the proposition that disputed questions of fact are unsuited to writ jurisdiction.

Source. High Court of Chhattisgarh at Bilaspur, WPS No. 7648 of 2022, decided 24 August 2026 by Justice Sachin Singh Rajput. This explainer is written from the judgment text as reported.

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