The High Court dismissed a writ petition challenging the rejection of an application to correct the petitioner's date of birth in his service record. The Court held that the date entered at the time of service with a thumb impression was valid and post-service certificates could not justify the correction.
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Court No. - 29
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 17272 of 2019
Petitioner :- Rajenra Kumar Dubey Respondent :- Union Of India And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Jaswant Singh Counsel for Respondent :- Vivek Kumar Rai
Hon'ble Pankaj Mithal,J. Hon'ble Vivek Agarwal,J.
Heard Sri Jaswant Singh, learned counsel for the petitioner. Sri Vivek Kumar Rai, learned counsel, who has appeared for the Railways.
The claim of the petitioner seeking correction of his dateof-birth as mentioned in the service record has been dismissed by the Central Administrative Tribunal vide judgement and order dated 25.10.2017 and the review thereof has also been rejected.
The petitioner in challenging the aforesaid judgement and order contends that the date-of-birth of the petitioner entered in the service book as 1202.1952 is incorrect and that his correct date-of-birth is 04.12.1961.
The Tribunal has recorded a finding that the petitioner at the time of entering the service has disclosed his date-ofbirth as 12.02.1957 and the same appears in the service book of the petitioner to which he has appended his thumb impression. The petitioner is not disputing his thumb impression on the service book. The petitioner was conscious of the date-of-birth as mentioned therein but made no effort to get it corrected within the probation period of three years.
The petitioner has not brought on record any application which he alleged to have filed in the year 1982 for the correction of the date-of-birth meaning thereby that he allowed the time permissible for getting the entries of the service book corrected to expire. The Rules categorically provid that no application for the correction shall be entertained after the expiry of the probation period.
The submission of learned counsel for the petitioner is that his high-school certificate records his date-of-birth as 04.12.1961 and therefore, the service record may be corrected accordingly.
The said submission is bereft of any merit inasmuch as the petitioner did high-school in the year 1997 much after entering into the service. The date-of-birth mentioned therein would not enure to his benefit so as to justify correction in the service record.
The petitioner alleges that at the time of entering the service, he had passed Class-VIII and that the said certificate also states that his date-of-birth is 04.12.1961 but the petitioner has not produced any such certificate of Class-X either before the Tribunal or before this court.
In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances, the date-of-birth has entered by the petitioner while entering the service under his thumb impression as rightly been taken to be the correct date-of-birth which requires no change at this stage. Accordingly, we are of the opinion that the Tribunal committed no error of law in dismissing the original application filed by the petitioner.
The Writ Petition is devoid of merit and is dismissed .
Order Date :- 7.11.2019 piyush
3 issues framed by the court
Whether the petitioner is entitled to correction of date of birth in service record on the basis of post-service educational certificates.
Whether the application for correction of service record was time-barred due to expiry of the probation period.
Whether the Tribunal erred in holding that the date affixed on joining service is the correct date of birth.
Rajenra Kumar Dubey
Union Of India
Pankaj Mithal
Vivek Agarwal
As recorded by the court registry
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