T A GAMI Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY filing the present petition, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has prayed that the impugned order dated 08.05.2008 passed by respondent No.1, rejecting the representation of the petitioner for change of date of birth, be quashed and set aside and the respondents be directed to correct the date of birth of the petitioner to 06.02.1954 instead of 31.10.1951, as entered in the service book.

(2.) BRIEFLY stated, the relevant facts of the case are that the petitioner joined the service of the respondent-State, as a direct recruit Mamlatdar, in the year 1978. The petitioner was promoted to the post of Deputy Collector in the year 1983 and is, at present, working on the post of Additional Collector. The case of the petitioner is that soon after he joined service, it came to his notice that there was a discrepancy in the service record with regard to his date of birth. According to the petitioner, his correct date of birth is 06.02.1954, but in the service record, the date of birth has been wrongly recorded as 31.10.1951. As the date of birth of the petitioner was not registered in the Register of Births and Deaths, the petitioner approached the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, who is the competent authority in this regard. By certificate dated 12.09.1980, the Judicial Magistrate First Class, after verifying the available record, certified that the correct date of birth of the petitioner is 06.02.1954. Thereafter, on 11.12.1980, the petitioner made an application to the respondents, requesting that the error in recording his date of birth in the service record be corrected. The above-mentioned application of the petitioner was rejected by the respondents, vide order dated 05.02.1982, communicated to the petitioner by letter dated 06.03.1982. The petitioner, thereafter, made several representations to the respondents authorities, requesting them to reconsider the issue regarding correction of his date of birth, but no further decision was communicated to the petitioner in this regard. Under these circumstances, the petitioner filed a Civil Suit being, Civil Suit No. 127 of 1996 in the Court of learned Civil Judge(Senior Division), Jamnagar. The said suit was decreed by judgment and decree dated 24.03.2003, whereby it was declared that the date of birth of the petitioner is 06.02.1954. The respondent authorities were directed to consider the correct date of birth of the petitioner as being 06.02.1954 and to make necessary corrections in the service book of the petitioner. The respondent-State carried the said judgment of the learned Civil Judge in Appeal, being Regular Civil Appeal No.44 of 2005, which came to be allowed on technical grounds of limitation and territorial jurisdiction.

(3.) AN affidavit-in-reply has been filed by the State Government, wherein no cogent ground has been raised regarding the aspect of delay, or any plausible reason why the application of the petitioner for change of date of birth has been rejected.