Justice BP Routray passed the order Thursday while allowing a writ petition filed by Baidehi Behera, wife of Rabindra Nath Behera, who was working as a Head Messenger at SBI’s Karanjia branch when he went missing. Based on the court’s decree, the competent authority under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, issued a death certificate recording December 10, 2007 — the date he went missing — as his date of death. Her counsel submitted that the death certificate was a public document issued by a statutory authority and carried a presumption of correctness. The court also noted that the death certificate had remained unchallenged and that the bank had produced no evidence to disprove the date recorded in it. If the date or time of death is disputed, the court said, it must be established through direct or circumstantial evidence rather than assumption.