N SETHURAMAN Vs. DIRECTOR OF SCHOOL EDUCATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner seeks the issue of a writ of mandamus to direct the second respondent to alter the date of birth in his service register.

(2.) According to the petitioner, he was appointed as a clerk in Madurai Taluk Cooperative Marketing Society on 1.4.1971. In the service register, his date of birth has been entered as 16.4.1945. The petitioner further contends that his parents are illiterate and had inadvertently recorded his date of birth as 16.4.1945 in the SSLC book. But in fact his actual date of birth is 17.2.1948. He was now working as Deputy Regional Manager, T.N.C.S.C., Madurai. He was due to retirement on attaining the age of superannuation of 58 years as per the entry in the SSLC Book as 30.4.2003. But as per his actual date of birth, he was due to retire on 28.2.2006. The date as entered in the service register as 16.4.1945 is wrong. He further contends that during casual talk with his mother on 21.8.2002 regarding his retirement, he was informed that the correct date of birth was not the one as in the school register and that his mother told him to search for the records in his house. It was found from the birth extracts of his brothers and sisters that he was the fourth child to his parents and that his first brother's date of birth is 30.9.1942, his second elder brother's date of birth is 3.3.1945 and his elder sister's date of birth is 15.7.1946. Immediately he applied for a certificate of his date birth to the Sub Registrar Officer, Thamaraipatti and he came to understand that his correct date of birth is 17.2.1948. it was only then according to the petitioner it was found that a bonafide mistake had been committed by his parents. He filed a suit in O.S.No.796 of 2002 on the file of the Additional District Munsif Court, Madurai seeking declaration of his date of birth is 17.2.1948. The suit was decreed declaring the petitioner's date of birth is 17.2.1948. The petitioner's request to declare the correct date of birth to the first respondent was rejected and hence the above writ petition.

(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that by a decree dated 27.3.2003, the petitioner had obtained the necessary declaration and hence, the same was binding on the respondents.