Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court said mere discrepancy in date of birth in different educational records of a govt servant, bereft of any element of misrepresentation, or deliberate concealment, is not tantamount to fraud or wilful misrepresentation, hence no grounds to terminate his services. Justice Manju Rani Chauhan quashed the Jun 2019 dismissal order passed against a govt assistant teacher in Mau, while directing state authorities to permit him to resume his duties forthwith.“The inference of fraud, which entails grave civil consequences, cannot be drawn on the basis of equivocal circumstances or mere inconsistencies in record, howsoever inconvenient they may appear,” said the court.Petitioner Vijai Kumar Yadav was appointed assistant teacher in a junior basic school of Mau in 2014. In 2018, an RTI application was filed seeking his educational credentials and it was revealed that an earlier 1998 High School record showed his date of birth as Jul 2, 1984, whereas his Purva Madhyam certificate of 2001 recorded it as Jul 7, 1987.Relying on this discrepancy, Basic Shiksha Adhikari in Mau dismissed him from service on Jun 27, 2019 and directed lodging FIR against him.Challenging the dismissal order, Yadav filed the petition, contending that the said High School certificate had neither been relied upon nor produced by the petitioner at any stage of recruitment process. It was submitted that the same was neither utilised for seeking admission to the BTC Training Course, 2010.Further, it was argued that since no benefit had been derived by the petitioner on the basis of the said certificate at any point in time, the dismissal order was wholly unjustified and legally unsustainable.The court observed that non-disclosure, to assume character of misconduct, must be purposeful, calculated and actuated by a discernible intent to deceive.The court by order dated Apr 13, quashed the dismissal order and directed the authorities to permit the petitioner to join his duties forthwith.
