K BALAKRISHNAN Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant is working as a Fireman. He had joined service in the year 1985. At the time of joining service, he had given his date of birth as January 26, 1952. On January 8, 2002, the appellant submitted an application for correction of his date of birth. It was rejected by the Government, vide order dated July 2, 2002. A copy of the order is Ext. P4. Aggrieved by the order, the appellant approached this Court through a petition under Art.226 of the Constitution. It was dismissed by the learned Single Judge vide order dated August 13, 2002. Hence this appeal.

(2.) Mr. Chandran Pillai, learned counsel for the appellant, contends that an application for correction of the date of birth had been actually submitted on June 17, 1991 to the Commissioner for Government Examinations, Kerala. It was accepted vide order dated July 3, 2001. Immediately thereafter, an application had been submitted to the Department for correction of the date of birth. A copy of the application dated September 22, 2001 is Ext. P3. Thus, there was no culpable delay on the part of the appellant. Accordingly, the respondents had erred in rejecting the prayer for correction of the date of birth.

(3.) Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the matter of correction of date of birth is governed by the Government Circular dated December 30, 1991. A copy of the Circular has been produced as Ext. P5, A perusal of the Circular shows that Government was faced with the problem of examining the issue regarding the correction of date of birth in a large number of cases. Invariably, applications were filed shortly before the employee was due to retire. Thus, to obviate such a situation, the Government had decided to impose a time limit. In this context, it was provided as under :