Telangana High Court: A writ petition was filed against a decision of the Administrative Committee of the High Court wherein petitioner’s application for alteration in date of birth from 01-07-1949 to 29-03-1953 in service records was rejected. The Division Bench of Alok Aradhe, CJ., and Anil Kumar Jukanti, J.*, dismissed the writ petition and held that permitting petitioner to correct his date of birth in service record would result in incongruous situation where there would be different dates recorded in his Higher Secondary Leaving Certificate (‘HSLC’) and service records, which was impermissible.
Background
Petitioner applied for the post of District Munisif on 17-12-1983 and in the application, he mentioned his date of birth as 01-07-1949. He was selected for the post of District Munsif and joined the service on 17-10-1985. An application dated 22-08-1985 was made to the High Court stating that prior to entry into service, he filed a suit before the District Munisif, Chodavaram, for alteration of date of birth as 29-03-1953 instead of 01-07-1949 in all records and the Court decreed the suit in his favour. When the Service Register opened, based on Birth Extract produced before the then District Judge, Visakhapatnam, his date of birth was entered as 29-03-1953. The Government of Andhra Pradesh issued order dated 09-12-1988 which directed to make necessary corrections in HSLC Register.
The matter was placed before the Administrative Committee of the Judges and the Committee of Judges rejected the alteration of date of birth vide order dated 11-11-1997 and thus the same was challenged before the High Court. Vide order dated 06-02-2002, the High Court allowed the writ petition to change the date of birth. The matter was further appealed before the Supreme Court, which was later disposed of and it was directed that the High Court on the Administrative side should determine the Judicial Officer’s date of birth in accordance with Rule 2 of the A.P. Public Employment (Recording and Alteration of Date of Birth) Rules, 1984 (‘Rules, 1984’) and if the date of birth was proved to be as 29-03-1953 then all consequential benefits must be issued within two weeks.
In compliance with the directions of the Supreme Court, the matter was placed before the Administrative Committee and petitioner’s plea that he was born 29-03-1953 was not accepted. A writ petition was filed against this decision.
It was submitted that the Registrar of Birth and Death of petitioner’s village Chodavaram, Vishakhapatnam recorded the date of birth as 29-03-1953 and petitioner’s parents were illiterate, and someone entered his date of birth as 01-07-1949. It was further submitted that petitioner was practising as an advocate from 1980. He filed a suit for change of date of birth on 18-03-1985 and was decreed on 28-02-1985, and pursuant to the decree, the Principal District Judge entered the date of birth as 29-03-1953. The Principal District Judge entered the date of birth as 01-07-1949 according to HSLC register earlier. It was submitted that the decree was prior to the date of entry into service and the entry in the HSLC register was corrected in 1988 and in such circumstances Rules 2A of the Rules, 1984 would not operate as a bar.
Respondent submitted that petitioner completed his 12th grade in the year 1968-1969 and f petitioner was born in 1953, he would have completed 12th grade when he was only fifteen years old which was 2 years ahead of normal time. It was further submitted that Rule 2A of the Rules, 1984 was applicable to petitioner as there was a pending proceeding on determination on his date of birth in accordance with Rule 5 of the Rules, 1984.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court noted that the High Court observed that petitioner had studied 9th class in year 1964-1965 and 12th class in year 1967-1968. It was opined by the High Court that it was not possible to believe that petitioner had completed 12th class at the age of fourteen years. Thus, this Court opined that there was no infirmity in the entire report and therefore, it would not disturb the finding of the High Court. This Court noted that in the application form submitted for the post of District Munsif, the date of birth mentioned was 01-07-1949 and the contention of petitioner was contrary to the application. Thus, this Court further opined that the District Munsif had grossly erred in arriving at the finding with regard to date of birth.
The Court relied on Home Deptt. v. R. Kirubakaran, 1994 Supp (1) SCC 155 and Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Ltd. v. T.P. Nataraja, (2021) 12 SCC 27 and opined that “the application for change of date of birth made by petitioner could not be considered as Rules, 1984 did not permit for alteration of the date of birth entered in the service records. The entries made by the employee were final and binding, and the employee was estopped from disputing the correctness of the date of birth. Rules did not permit alteration of date of birth based on any judgment, decree or order of a Civil Court, and no indulgence could be shown”. The Court further opined that the claim for correction of date of birth would completely frustrate the objective behind the Rules, 1984. Petitioner was unable to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Court either in law or on facts about the claim for alteration of date of birth. The Court further opined that “correction of date of birth cannot be claimed as a matter of right”.
The Court opined that petitioner did not attempt to get the date of birth corrected in his school records and thus, permitting petitioner to correct his date of birth in service record would result in incongruous situation where there would be different dates recorded in his HSLC and service records, which was impermissible. The Court dismissed the writ petition being devoid of merit.
[Sanyasi Rao v. High Court of Andhra Pradesh, 2024 SCC OnLine TS 9, decided on: 30-01-2024]
*Judgment Authored by: Justice Anil Kumar Jukanti
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: M. Surender Rao, Senior Counsel
For the Respondent: V. Uma Devi, Standing Counsel; K. Vivek Reddy, Senior Counsel
