In short. You can get a copy of service book entries in central government service by asking your head of office in writing, by inspecting the book during the annual verification, or by filing an RTI application. Your personal file can also be sought under RTI. This guide is for serving employees, retirees and families who need these records for pay, MACP, pension or a dispute. A written request usually gets an answer in two to six weeks; RTI must be answered within 30 days. Start by checking e-HRMS and writing one dated letter to your establishment section this week.
Is this your situation?
- You have never actually seen your service book, or last saw it years ago.
- Your pay, MACP or pension calculation looks wrong and you suspect an entry in the book.
- Retirement is two or three years away and you want to check every spell of service before pension papers are made.
- Your office has moved records to e-HRMS 2.0 and you are not sure the digital version is complete.
- You asked the establishment section for a copy and were told it is not given to employees.
- You want to see what notes and letters about you sit in your personal file.
- A family member has died in service or after retirement and the family needs the record to claim dues.
In short
- You are entitled to see your own service book. SR 202 makes the head of office show it to you every year and take your signature as proof that you saw it.
- Ask in writing before you file RTI. A dated letter to the head of office for inspection and a certified copy is often enough, and it creates a record if the office stalls.
- RTI is the fallback, and it works for your own records. Information about yourself is not blocked by the personal information exemption, though notes about colleagues will be blacked out.
- Inspect first, photocopy second. Going through the book page by page tells you exactly which pages to ask for, and saves money and time.
- If your office uses e-HRMS 2.0, check the e-Service Book against the paper one before the paper book is phased out, because gaps tend to creep in during data entry.
- Keep acknowledgements. The diary number on your request, the RTI registration number and the postal receipt are what you will rely on later if the matter goes to the Tribunal.
Service book and personal file: two different records
The service book is the formal history of your career. Under SR 198 and SR 199 of the Supplementary Rules, it is opened when you first join and every step after that is entered in it: appointment, pay fixation, increments, promotions, MACP, transfers, leave, suspension, penalties and nominations. It stays with your head of office and travels with you on transfer. Pension is worked out from it. If a spell of service is missing from the book, it is often missing from your pension too.
The personal file is something else. It is the folder the establishment or administration section keeps on you: your representations, office notes on them, explanation letters, leave applications, correspondence about postings, and sometimes copies of orders. It does not have the legal status of the service book, but it often tells you why a decision was taken, which the service book never does. When a dispute is brewing, the personal file usually contains the noting that matters.
Two other records sit apart. Your APAR dossier is held by the custodian of APARs, and your vigilance record is held by the vigilance section. Those have their own rules on disclosure, covered in our guide on RTI for DPC minutes, APARs and inquiry files. This page is about the service book and the personal file.
Why the rules already expect you to see your service book
SR 202 puts a duty on every head of office to show the service book to each employee under his control once a year and to take the employee's signature as proof. The head of office is then expected to send a certificate to the next higher officer that this has been done. In many offices this happens on paper only, if at all. Even so, the rule is your strongest point when someone in the section tells you the book is confidential. It is not confidential from you.
Annual verification of service book entries is a separate duty. At the start of each year the head of office is supposed to verify the service recorded in the book against office records and sign a certificate saying up to which date service has been verified. DoPT's OM of 23 October 2013 reminded departments of this, suggested that an annual service verification statement be issued to employees, ideally along with the April pay slip, and said that gaps in verification should be told to the employee so that missing spells can be verified in time.
So when you ask for inspection, you are not asking for a favour. You are asking the office to do what its own rules and DoPT's instructions already require. Saying so politely in your letter, with the rule number, tends to move the file faster than a long complaint.
How to get a copy of your service book, step by step
Try these in order. Most people get what they need by step 3 or 4; RTI and appeals are there for offices that do not respond.
Check whether an e-Service Book already exists
If your ministry or department has moved to e-HRMS 2.0, log in and look for the service book or service history section. Take screenshots or download what is shown, with the date visible. Railway staff should check the HRMS application used by their zone, where the service record is being digitised.
Write a short service record request
Address a one-page letter to your head of office through your controlling officer, asking for inspection of your service book and personal file and for certified photocopies of the pages you mark. Mention SR 202 and the DoPT OM of 23 October 2013. Hand it in at the dak or receipt section and get a diary number, or send it by Speed Post.
Inspect the book on the date given
Go with a notebook and a list of the events you expect to see. Read every page, including the verification certificates. Note page numbers of anything missing, wrongly entered or not attested by the head of office.
Ask for certified copies of the pages you marked
Request photocopies of the specific pages, each signed and stamped as a true copy. Offices sometimes charge a small copying cost. A certified copy carries more weight than your own phone photograph if the entries are later disputed.
File an RTI application if there is no reply in about a month
Send it to the Central Public Information Officer of your office, asking to inspect your service book and personal file and for copies of named pages. Pay the Rs 10 fee. The CPIO must reply within 30 days under Section 7.
File a first appeal if RTI is refused or ignored
Under Section 19(1), the first appeal goes to the First Appellate Authority in the same office within 30 days of the reply or of the date the reply was due. Attach the RTI application and any reply.
Take the second appeal or a representation further
A second appeal lies to the Central Information Commission within 90 days of the first appeal decision. Where the dispute is really about a wrong entry rather than access, write a representation for correction instead of spending months on RTI appeals.
A retiree or a family member follows the same path, but the letter goes to the office where the employee last served, and a family member should attach proof of relationship and the death certificate.
Inspection before photocopies: the order that saves time
Advocate B.K. Singh's first practical tip is to ask for inspection of the service book before asking for a full photocopy. A service book of a person with twenty-five years of service can run to a hundred pages or more, many of them routine increment entries. When the whole book is copied at once, nobody reads it carefully, including the employee. When you sit with the book, you find the one missing page, the unattested promotion entry or the leave spell recorded as extraordinary leave without medical certificate.
After inspection, ask only for the pages that matter, plus the first page, the verification certificates and the pages covering the period in dispute. That request is easy for an office to meet and hard for it to refuse. It also gives you a copy that is short enough to annex to a representation or an Original Application without padding.
If you are not allowed to take notes, or the dealing clerk sits over you and hurries you, mention that in a follow-up letter the same day. Write down the time and the name of the person who supervised the inspection. These small notes look unimportant at the time and become useful if the office later claims you saw and accepted the entries.
Service book inspection: what to check on each page
- First page: name, date of birth in words and figures, educational qualifications, father's or husband's name, identification marks and your signature or thumb impression, attested by the head of office.
- Date of entry into service and the post, pay scale or pay level shown in the first appointment entry.
- Every pay fixation: on appointment, on promotion, on MACP, on the 6th and 7th CPC revisions, with the option you exercised.
- Annual increment entries and the month in which they fall (January or July), and whether any increment was withheld and why.
- Leave account: earned leave and half pay leave credited and debited, and any spell recorded as extraordinary leave or dies non.
- Transfers and joining dates at each station, including joining time, and whether a break appears between relieving and joining.
- Previous service in another central office, state government, autonomous body or the armed forces, and whether it is recorded as counting for pension.
- Penalties, suspensions and their final outcome, including orders revoking or setting aside a penalty.
- Nominations for gratuity, GPF or NPS, CGEGIS and family details, and whether they match your current family.
- Annual verification certificates and the date up to which service has been verified.
The e-Service Book on e-HRMS 2.0
DoPT's OM of 17 June 2025 asks ministries and departments that have moved to e-HRMS 2.0 to maintain service books only on that portal, and to phase out physical service books once the e-Service Book data has been checked for completeness and accuracy. The OM treats the e-Service Book as valid for all purposes. That makes the digital record the one your pension will be built from in future.
The risk is in the transfer. Entries are typed in by an operator from a handwritten book, often in a hurry, and an old spell of ad hoc service, a pay fixation option, or a break in service condoned years ago can easily be left out or mistyped. If your department has digitised the book, compare the e-Service Book with the physical book line by line while the physical one is still available. Write to the establishment section listing every difference you find, with page numbers of the paper book.
Do not assume that a missing entry will be fixed automatically later. Once the paper book is closed or sent to record, finding it again can take months. A short letter now, with a diary number, is worth more than a long argument at retirement.
Personal file RTI: what you can get and what will be blacked out
The Right to Information Act, 2005 lets you ask for information held by a public authority, and Section 2(j) includes the right to inspect files and records and to take certified copies. An application under Section 6 to the CPIO of your office, asking for inspection of your personal file and copies of specific notings and letters, is usually the quickest way to see why a representation was rejected or a request was refused.
Section 8(1)(j) exempts personal information about other people. It does not stop you getting information about yourself. In practice the CPIO will give you your own file but may mask the names or personal details of colleagues mentioned in it, using the severability power in Section 10. Since 13 November 2025, when Section 44(3) of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 came into force, the old public interest override in Section 8(1)(j) has gone, so requests for other employees' service books or personal details are now refused more readily. Ask for your own record first, and get comparative information through official seniority lists and orders.
File notings are not exempt simply because they are internal. Offices sometimes refuse them saying they are part of the deliberative process. If the matter has been decided, that reason usually does not hold, and the first appeal is the place to say so. Keep the RTI request tight: name the file, the period and the type of document. A request for 'all documents relating to me since 1998' invites a refusal on the ground that it would disproportionately divert the office's resources.
Time and cost for each route
| Route | Typical time | Cost | What you end up with |
|---|---|---|---|
| e-HRMS 2.0 self-view (where available) | Same day | Nil | Screen view or download of the e-Service Book; not a certified copy |
| Annual inspection under SR 202 | Once a year, when the office organises it | Nil | Sight of the book and your signature in it; ask separately for copies |
| Written request to head of office | About 2 to 6 weeks; longer in large offices | Nil, or a small copying cost | Inspection and certified copies of marked pages |
| RTI application under Section 6 | Reply due within 30 days | Rs 10 fee; Rs 2 per A4 page; first hour of inspection free, then Rs 5 per hour | Inspection and copies; third-party details may be masked |
| First appeal under Section 19(1) | To be filed within 30 days; decision usually in 30 to 45 days | Nil | Order directing or refusing disclosure |
| Second appeal to the CIC | To be filed within 90 days; hearing can take several months | Nil | Commission's order, which can include directions to disclose |
| Representation and then an OA before the CAT | Representation: allow up to 6 months; OA: months to a few years | A small fixed Tribunal fee (Rs 50 under Rule 7 of the CAT (Procedure) Rules; check the current figure) plus documentation and lawyer's fees agreed separately | Direction to produce, reconstruct or correct the record |
When the office says the service book is missing
Lost service books are more common than offices admit, especially after a transfer between zones, a merger of offices or a shift of building. If you are told the book cannot be found, ask for that in writing. A written admission that the book is missing protects you, because it shifts the job of reconstructing your service to the office.
A service record can be rebuilt from other material: pay bills and pay slips, the last pay certificate issued on each transfer, GPF or NPS statements, increment orders, promotion and MACP orders, seniority and gradation lists, and attendance or leave records. Start gathering whatever you have at home. Ask the PAO for its record of your pay drawn, because it often survives when the office copy does not.
Write to the head of office asking for the book to be reconstructed, attach copies of what you hold, and ask that each spell be verified and certified. If nothing happens within a few months, that refusal or silence is a grievance you can take further, first by a representation of the kind explained in our page on writing the representation Section 20 expects, and then before the Tribunal if needed.
Railway, postal, defence civilian and Group A staff: where the book sits
In the railways, the service record of non-gazetted staff is held by the personnel branch of the division or workshop, and digitisation through the railway HRMS is well advanced. A railway employee should ask the personnel branch, not the station or depot in-charge, and should check that the digital record carries old casual or substitute service where it counted. In the Department of Posts, service books of departmental staff sit with the divisional office. Gramin Dak Sevaks are engaged under their own conduct and engagement rules and their records are kept differently, so a GDS should ask the divisional office for the engagement record and TRCA fixation papers rather than a service book.
Civilian staff in Army, Navy and Air Force units usually have their service books held by the unit or establishment, with pay records maintained by the controller of defence accounts concerned. When a unit has moved, ask the unit and the controller both. For many Group A officers the service record is maintained by the cadre controlling authority or the ministry's administration wing rather than the office where the officer sits, so the request should go there.
A retiree's service book usually goes with the pension papers to the Pay and Accounts Office and then back to record. Ask the last office first and the PAO second. If your worry is about service that should have counted for pension, our page on earlier or casual service left out of qualifying service explains what can be done once you have the record.
A made-up example: a postal assistant in Varanasi
Here's a made-up example. Rekha, 54, is a postal assistant in Varanasi division. She joined as a temporary employee in a different division in 1996 and was regularised in 1999. Her MACP orders count service only from 1999, and she suspects the earlier spell was never entered. Nobody in her office has shown her the service book since her last transfer.
She writes to the Senior Superintendent of Post Offices, Varanasi, through her postmaster, asking for inspection of her service book and personal file under SR 202 and the DoPT OM of 23 October 2013. She gets a diary number. Five weeks pass with no answer, so she files an RTI application with the divisional CPIO, asking to inspect both records and for copies of the first page, the 1996 to 1999 pages and the verification certificates.
At inspection she finds that the 1996 to 1999 spell is recorded but marked 'not verified'. The personal file has a 2009 note saying verification was pending a reply from her earlier division, and no follow-up. She asks for certified copies of those pages, writes a representation asking that the spell be verified and counted, and keeps every receipt. Whether the earlier service counts for MACP is a separate question; what matters here is that she now has the papers to raise it properly.
Papers to attach to your request
Serving employee asking the office
- Copy of your identity card and latest pay slip
- List of the events you want to check, with approximate dates
- Copy of any earlier request and its diary number
- Copy of the annual service verification statement, if one was ever issued
RTI application
- Application naming the records, period and type of copies wanted
- Rs 10 fee by IPO, demand draft or online payment on the RTI portal
- Self-attested proof of identity if you ask for your own records, so the CPIO can see the request is from you
- Postal receipt or online registration number
Retiree or family member
- PPO number and copy of the PPO, if issued
- Death certificate and proof of relationship, for a family member
- Legal heir or succession document, if the office asks for it
- Last office address and the employee's last post and staff number
Found a mistake? Next steps after you have the copy
Getting the copy is the first half of the job. If the copy shows a wrong date of birth, a wrong joining date, a qualification left out, or a leave spell wrongly treated, the next step is a representation for correction, attaching the documents that prove the right entry. Our guide on service book mistakes in joining date, qualifications and leave entries takes that further, and date of birth has its own strict rules, explained in correcting your date of birth close to retirement.
Keep an eye on time. A request for inspection does not by itself start the one-year clock for a Tribunal case, but an order refusing correction does. The way the Tribunal counts that year, and why repeated letters do not stretch it, is explained in our guide on when the one-year clock starts.
If the mistake affects pension, act before your last year of service. Pension papers are prepared well in advance, and correcting a service book after retirement means writing to several offices at once.
Mistakes people make when asking for their records
- Asking orally and waiting. A spoken request leaves no trace. A one-page letter with a diary number takes ten minutes and protects you.
- Asking for 'everything'. Broad RTI requests are easy to refuse. Name the record, the period and the pages.
- Copying the whole book without reading it. The copy sits in a drawer until retirement, when it is too late to fix gaps quietly.
- Going over the head of the office. Write to your own head of office through proper channel first. Sending the first letter straight to the Secretary or a Minister can be treated as a breach of the rules on representations.
- Taking photographs of files you were not shown. Copy only what is shown to you for inspection. Removing or photographing other official papers can attract action under the conduct rules.
- Losing the acknowledgement. Keep the diary number, Speed Post receipt and RTI registration number with your copy. Our guide on organising your service case folder shows a simple way to file them.
What to do this week
Log in to e-HRMS if your office uses it and save what you see. Write the one-page request for inspection of your service book and personal file, cite SR 202, and get it diarised. Make a list of the events in your career you expect to find recorded, with rough dates, so that inspection is quick and focused.
Advocate B.K. Singh's second tip is to check the verification certificates before anything else when you open the book. A page that says service has been verified only up to a date ten years ago tells you that every later entry is unverified, and that is exactly the period in which pension delays usually arise. Ask in writing for verification of the remaining years, and keep the copy of that letter with your copy of the service book.
If you are within two years of retirement, also read our guide on what must happen in your last 12 months of service. Where a family member is trying to recover the records of an employee who has died, what the family can pursue sets out the claims that usually depend on these papers.
If you have the copy and something in it worries you, contact Advocate B.K. Singh for advice on your papers or for updates on the law.
Frequently asked questions
Can my office refuse to show me my service book?
No. SR 202 requires the head of office to show every employee the service book each year and take a signature as proof. If inspection is refused, put your request in writing and, if needed, follow it with an RTI application.
Is a photograph of my service book enough for a court case?
A photograph helps you, but a certified copy signed by the office is far better if the entries are disputed. Ask for certified copies of the pages that matter after you have inspected the book.
Who keeps the service book after I retire?
It is usually sent with your pension papers to the Pay and Accounts Office and then kept in record by the office or the PAO. Ask your last office first; if it has been sent on, ask the PAO.
Can I get my colleague's service book under RTI to compare pay?
Usually not. Another employee's service record is personal information under Section 8(1)(j), and since November 2025 the public interest override has been removed. Use seniority lists, promotion orders and pay fixation orders that are already shared instead.
How much does an RTI for my personal file cost?
The application fee is Rs 10 for central public authorities. Copies cost Rs 2 per A4 page, and inspection is free for the first hour and Rs 5 for each later hour under the RTI Rules, 2012.
What if the RTI reply says the file is under correction or not traceable?
File a first appeal within 30 days and ask the appellate authority to direct a search and a reply on affidavit. Also write to the head of office asking for the record to be reconstructed, since a missing record is the office's responsibility.
Do Gramin Dak Sevaks have a service book?
GDS are engaged under their own rules and their records are kept by the divisional office in a different form. Ask for the engagement record, TRCA fixation papers and any orders about you instead of a service book.
Does asking for my service book start the limitation period?
No. A request for inspection or copies does not start the one-year period for a Tribunal case. The clock runs from an order rejecting your claim, or from six months after a representation that is not decided.
Advocate B.K. Singh
Founder of B.K. Singh & Associates. MCA, LL.B., LL.M. More than twenty years in practice before the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court and other High Courts, the Central Administrative Tribunal and other tribunals. This guide was written and reviewed by his team.
This guide explains the law in general terms and is not legal advice. For advice on your own papers, contact the team.
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