SHIVDAN LAKHA Vs. MINISTRY OF WATER RESOURCES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has filed this present writ petition seeking correction of date of birth in service record as 06/08/1960 in place of 01/03/1955. With the consent of the parties, present writ petition is heard finally as the petitioner is going to retire on 28/02/2017 on the basis of date of birth recorded in service record.

(2.) The petitioner was appointed as helper (contingency) in the year 1978. At that time, he was not having any proof in respect of his death of birth as 01/03/1955. In the year 2015, he came to know that the department has recorded his date of birth as 01/03/1955, therefore, he immediately rushed to the Government Boys Primary School, Gandhisagar, District Mandsaur where, he took admission in Class-1. He obtained school living certificate / transfer certificate, where his death of birth was recorded as 06/08/1960. Thereafter, he submitted representation on 01/10/2015 seeking correction of date of birth as 06/08/1960. Thereafter, he submitted various representations. Meanwhile, the petitioner also got birth certificate on 16/11/2015 from the Gram-Panchyat, voter ID card, PAN card and prayed for correction of date of birth. The representations of the petitioner were forwarded by the executing engineer to the District Treasury Officer, who is competent to take decision in respect of correction of date of birth. When the District Treasury has not considered the representation of the petitioner for correction of date of birth, he approached this Court by way of writ petition.

(3.) After notice, the respondent filed return, in which, it is submitted that the petition is hopelessly time barred as he prayed for correction of date of birth at the fag end of his service . At the time of entry in the service, date of birth was recorded in the service book as 01/03/1955 and which cannot be permitted to be corrected after 37 years of his service. The petitioner is going to retire on 28/02/2017 and for which, notice has also been issued to him on 28/12/2016. The Honourable Apex Court as well as this Court in numbers of cases has deprecated and has not permitted the correction of date of birth at the fag end of career, hence prayed for dismissal of the writ petition.