DIRECTOR OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION Vs. K SITADEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) - Appellant's challenge by special leave is to the correctness of the decision of the Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal by which the respondent's application for alteration of her date of birth from 19-10-1929 to 21-8-1933 has been accepted.

(2.) Respondent, a lady engineer in the service of the State of Andhra Pradesh, entered into service in 1955. Admittedly she is an engineering graduate. The matriculation certificate which she had then produced while entering into service indicated her date of birth to be 19-10-1929. It appears that she filed Original Suit No. 309 of 1979 in the Civil Court for alteration of her date of birth from 19-10-1929 to 21-8-1933 impleading the Andhra University as defendant and obtained the decree on 21-10-1980. Pursuant to the decree of the Civil Court, the Andhra University issued a fresh matriculation certificate to her in which her date of birth was shown as 21-8-1933. On the basis of this new certificate respondent applied to the appropriate authority in the State for changing her date of birth from 19-10-1929 to 21-8-1933 in the service record. Such application was, however, rejected on 23-6-1983. Thereafter, the respresentation was filed before the Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal and the same having been allowed the appeal has been brought to this Court.

(3.) It is not in dispute that in the suit the State of Andhra Pradesh was not impleaded and the only defendant was the Andhra University which had granted the certificate. The claim of the respondent for the alteration of date of birth was based upon a municipal certificate regarding date of birth. Though, the suit was contested, the State of Andhra Pradesh not being a defendant, the decree was not accepted by the State. The matter would have been certainly very different if the decree was obtained in the presence of the State of Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Madhava Reddy is, therefore, justified in his submissions that the decree and the municipal certificate on which reliance was placed in the suit were only pieces of evidence having no binding effect on the dispute. His submission is that the Tribunal has erred by relying upon them as binding on the State.