GHULAM FATIMA Vs. STATE OF J.&K.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has filed this petition seeking quashment of communication dated 12.03.2010 whereby she had requested the respondents to rectify the entry of her date of birth in her service records, and further sought a direction to direct the respondents to record her date of birth as per the revised Matriculation Certificate issued by the Board of Secondary Education.

(2.) SHEERING the details, the facts as narrated in the petition are that petitioner passed her Matriculation Examination in the year 1981. The State Board of School Education (for short, the Board) issued the Matriculation Examination Certificate in her favour under serial no. 8268 showing her date of birth as 05.08.1958. She was appointed as Junior Assistant in the office of State Advocate General in 1985. On the basis of her aforesaid Matriculation Examination Certificate, her date of birth in the service records was recorded as 05.08.1958. Thereafter, the petitioner seems to have approached the Board for correction of her date of birth in the Board records as well as in her Matriculation Examination Certificate on the plea that her actual date of birth was 05.08.1959 and not 05.08.1958. The Board issued a fresh Matriculation Examination Certificate under serial no. 18290 in her favour showing her date of birth as 05.08.1959. A photocopy of this certificate has been placed on record as annexure PA. Thereafter, on 04.08.1995, the petitioner made an application to the Advocate General requesting that her date of birth in the service records be entered as 05.08.1959 as reflected in the certificate issued by the Board. The matter appears to have been taken up by the office of the Advocate General initially with the Board to ascertain the veracity of the claim made by the petitioner and, after verification of the claim, with the Government in the Law Department for appropriate orders. In response thereto, the Under Secretary to Government, Law Department, in terms of communication no. LD(A)2001/166 dated 5.8.2000 informed the Advocate General that the case was not covered under rule, i.e., under clause (d) of SRO 310 dated 29.11.1995.

(3.) THE respondents in their objections have contested the claim of the petitioner, inter alia, on the ground that since the petitioner had voluntarily produced her date of birth certificate showing her date of birth as 05.08.1958 at the time of her appointment and herself declared the date of birth, which was agreed to by the department and entered in the records, the petitioner is estopped from taking altogether a different stand and claim for alteration of her date of birth in the service records.