JUDGMENT
Mukundakam Sharma, J.
1. This writ petition is filed in this Court by the petitioner who is an officer of the Delhi Higher Judicial Service. In the Delhi Judicial Service Examination, held in the year 1979, the petitioner submitted his application form. The said application form was required to be filled up by the petitioner giving various informations relating to himself and his educational qualifications. He was also required to produce certificates of the relevant qualifying examinations. The aforesaid application for appearing in the Delhi Judicial Examination-1979 was filed by the petitioner in his own handwriting and in the said application, the petitioner declared his date of birth as 8th June, 1949. The Secondary School Certificate issued by the Secondary Education Board, Rajasthan, which was annexed with the said application form, also recorded his date of birth as 8th June, 1949. Petitioner appeared in the said Delhi Judicial Service Examination and duly qualified in the same. Consequent thereupon, the petitioner joined the Delhi Judicial Service in December, 1979 and at the time of his entry into the Judicial Service, his date of birth was recorded as 8th June, 1949 on the basis of his own declaration.
2. Thereafter, after expiry of about more than 20 years, the petitioner addressed a representation, dated 10th August, 2000, to the Registrar, Delhi High Court, praying for correction of his date of birth in his service records. He has stated in his said representation that when he applied for entry into the Delhi Judicial Service, he had mentioned the date of birth in the application form as per the entry in the Secondary School Certificate. Thereafter in paragraphs 5,6 and 7 he has stated thus:
5. A few years back Shri Daulat Ram, my cousin, who serves in Haryana Police and belongs to village Massani happened to visit Delhi for official work and stayed with me. During casual talks with him, I came to know that my date of birth given in the certificate of Board of Secondary Education is incorrect. It also revealed that office of the District Registrar (Births & Deaths) and Civil Surgeon compulsorily maintains the records relating to birth and death in every District of Haryana.
6. To find the truth, I inspected the records of the District Registrar (Birth &Death) and Civil Surgeon, Rewari, Haryana, and obtained my birth certificate as well as the birth certificate of my brother and sister. Certificates in original are annexed with this application for your kind perusal.
7. After inspection of the above said records only I came to know that my actual date of birth is 19-11-1950 (Nineteenth of November One Thousand Nine Hundred Fifty) and not 8-6-1949 (Eighth of June One Thousand Nine Hundred Forty Nine).
In the aforesaid representation, the petitioner had requested for change of his date of birth in the service records from 8th June, 1949 to 19th November, 1950. Along with the said representation, a copy of the certificate dated 19th July, 2000 issued by the District Registrar (Deaths and Births) was annexed. The aforesaid representation filed by the petitioner was processed in the Registry of the High Court. Upon consideration of the averments made therein, the representation was rejected. The petitioner was also informed about the aforesaid rejection of his representation under letter dated 12th October, 2000.
3. Aggrieved by the said rejection, the petitioner filed the present writ petition in this Court in the month of July, 2005 praying for issuance of a writ of mandamus directing respondent No. 1 to carry out corrections relating to his date of birth and entering 19th November, 1950 instead of 8th June, 1949, in his service record. Notice on the writ petition was issued to the respondents. Counter affidavit was filed on behalf respondent No. 1, namely, the Delhi High Court in which several statements have been made in respect of the rejection of the claim of the petitioner for correction of his date of birth. It is stated that the case of the petitioner is based on alleged information given by one Shri Daulat Ram. It is also stated therein that neither any affidavit of Daulat Ram is placed on record nor it is stated as to how Daulat Ram could accurately remember the date of birth of the petitioner after a lapse of so many years. The respondent also made reference to the provisions of the All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules 1971 and 1978 and the General Financial Rules, 1979 which deal with the issue of determination of the date of birth and acceptance of date of birth. The following are the relevant rules which are extracted in the aforesaid counter affidavit.
i) 1971 Rules 16-A Determination of the date of birth – (1) For the purpose of determination of the date of superannuation of a member of the service such date shall be calculated with reference to the date of his birth as accepted or determined by the Central Government under this Rule.
The date of birth as declared by such person in the anticipation of recruitment to the service shall, in the absence of any cogent evidence to the contrary, be accepted by the Central Government as the date of birth of such person.
ii) 1978 Rules 16-A Acceptance of date of birth (1) For the purpose of determination of the date of superannuation of a member of the service such date shall be calculated with reference to the date of his birth as accepted or determined by the Central Government under this Rule.
(2) In relation to a person appointed, after the commencement of the All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules 1971 to the date of birth as declared by such person in the application for recruitment to the service shall be accepted by the Central Government as the date of birth of such person.
(3) In relation to a person to whom Sub-rule (2) does not apply, the date of birth as recorded in the service book or other similar official document maintained by the concerned Government shall be accepted by the Central Government, as a date of birth of such person.
iii) 1979 Rules Date of birth – (1) Every person newly appointed to a service or a post under Government shall at the time of the appointment declare the date of birth by the Christian era with as far as possible confirmatory documentary evidence such as a matriculation certificate, municipal birth certificate and so on. If the exact date is now known an approximate date shall be given.
Rule 79(2)
The actual date of the assumed date determined under Rule 80 shall be recorded in the history of service, service book, or any other record that may be kept in respect of the Government servant’s service under government and once recorded, it cannot be altered, except in the case of clerical error without the previous orders of a Department of the Central Government or an Administrator.
4. We have heard the learned Counsel appearing for the parties who have painstakingly taken us through the documents on record. Having gone through the said documents very minutely, we propose to dispose of this writ petition by recording our reasons for the same.
5. In the application form submitted by the petitioner for appearing in the Delhi Judicial Service Examination-1979, he himself, in his own hand, had declared his date of birth as 8th June, 1949. The said declaration was also on the basis of the Secondary School Certificate in which his date of birth is clearly recorded as 8th June, 1949. For about 20 long years there was no representation from the petitioner disputing correctness of the aforesaid date of birth in his service record. After lapse of about two decades, he has submitted the aforesaid representation for the first time on the ground that few years ago, he came to know about his actual date of birth from one of his close relatives on whose advice he obtained the certificate issued by the District Registrar (Birth & Deaths) and Civil Surgeon, Rewari, Haryana, which supports the contention of the petitioner that he was born on 19th November, 1950.
6. We have scrutinised the aforesaid certificate, a copy of which is placed on record. A bare perusal of the said certificate indicates the same as a certificate issued in respect of one Shri Om Prakash whereas the name of the petitioner is R.K. Yadav. It is stated that the petitioner at the time of his birth was named Om Prakash, which was later on changed to R.K. Yadav. No supporting document or evidence is placed on record as to under what circumstances and at which point in time and for what reason the said name Om Prakash came to be changed to R.K. Yadav. The petitioner cannot avail of benefit of change of date of birth to his advantage on the basis of a certificate issued in the name of another person, which is produced in Court after a lapse of about 20 years from the date of his entry into the service and from the date of his own declaration that his date of birth is 8th June, 1949.
7. The manner and the circumstances in which the petitioner allegedly was informed about his actual date of birth also appears to us to be doubtful and casts a doubt on the statement of the petitioner which he has not been able to dispel. Shri Daulat Ram is stated to be the first cousin of the petitioner who allegedly informed the petitioner that his actual date of birth is 19th November, 1950. It was he who also told him that he could obtain a certificate indicating his actual date of birth. There is no affidavit filed by Shri Daulat Ram in support of the said alleged statements made by him and also as to why he could not disclose the said fact to the petitioner earlier. The fact that Daulat Ram could remember and recollect the date of birth of the petitioner after a long period of 20 years, when all other persons in the family could not remember the same, is rather curious and remains shrouded in mystery.
8. We have perused the original records and we are satisfied with the manner in which the aforesaid representation of the petitioner was dealt with and rejected. In our considered opinion, the prayer of the nature made by the petitioner cannot be entertained after expiry of 20 years and that too, without producing unimpeachable, irrefutable and substantial evidence. It is also to be mentioned at this stage that the petitioner has admittedly taken no steps to get his date of birth corrected in his Secondary School Certificate.
9. The petitioner, for the first time, filed a representation for change of his date of birth after a lapse of 20 years. The representation submitted was rejected on 12th October, 2000 whereas he approached this Court only in July, 2005, i.e. after a gap of almost five years. We may also refer to the relevant provisions of the rules which are extracted herein-above. Mandate of the rule is that date of birth of an officer shall be determined and calculated with reference to the date of birth as accepted or determined by the government on the basis of his own declaration. Rules also envisaged that the date of birth, as declared by a person in anticipation of recruitment to the service shall, in the absence of any cogent evidence to the contrary, have to be accepted as date of birth of such person. Rule 16A(2) of the 1978 Rules also makes it clear that the date of birth as declared by such person in the application for recruitment to the service shall be accepted as the date of birth of such person.
10. When all the aforesaid provisions are considered in the light of various decisions of the Supreme Court, it is clearly established that the request of the petitioner for change of his date of birth should not and cannot be entertained in view of the nature of the evidence produced and also in the light of the discussions made herein-above. There is also unreasonable and inexplicable delay at various steps on the part of the petitioner in raising the dispute and also in filing the writ petition in this Court. Be that as it may, we make it clear that we are not dismissing this writ petition on the ground of delay but we are dismissing it on merit as, according to us, the petitioner has not been able to prove and establish his case by leading unimpeachable and irrefutable evidence in support of his prayer. Whatever evidence the petitioner has placed on the record, does not inspire any confidence in us.
11. In the decision of the Supreme Court in Union of India v. Harnam Singh , it was held that it is competent for the government to fix a time limit in the service rules after which no application for correction of date of birth of government servant should be entertained. In the said decision, Note 5 to FR-56(m) was considered and relied upon for dismissing the claim of the concerned officer. It was also held in the said decision that it would be open to a civil servant to claim correction of his date of birth, if he is in possession of irrefutable proof relating to his date of birth as different from the one earlier recorded and even if there is no limitation prescribed for seeking correction to the date of birth, a government servant must do so without any unreasonable delay. It is also held in the said decision that in the absence of any provision in the rules for correction of date of birth, the general principle of refusing the relief on grounds of laches or stale claims, is generally applied by Courts and Tribunals. In State of Tamil Nadu v. T.V. Venugopalan , wherein the government considered the application filed by the applicant for correction of his date of birth and rejected the same after considering various facts and circumstances, the Supreme Court held that the date of birth recorded after entering service and countersigned by the government servant would not be permitted to be challenged by the government servant at the fag end of his service.
12. In view of the aforesaid discussion and for the reasons stated hereinabove, we find no merit in the writ petition and the same is dismissed.