Gurpal Singh Ahluwalia DECISION
Gurpal Singh Ahluwalia, J.
Heard finally through Video Conferencing.
1. This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed against the order dated 16/10/2018, by which the petitioner has been retired from service on attaining the age of 62 years.
2. It is submitted by the counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner is an illiterate person and was appointed in the year 1979 as daily-rated employee and since the petitioner did not have any age proof at the time of his appointment, therefore, the date of birth i.e. 04/10/1956 was wrongly mentioned in his service book without any attesting proof. It is further submitted that where the employee does not have any document in support of proof of his age, then the respondents/authorities should have got the employee examined medically by the Medical Board in order to ascertain his age. However, on the basis of incorrect date of birth mentioned in the service book, he has been retired from 31/10/2018.
3. Per contra, the petition is vehemently opposed by the counsel for the State. It is submitted that it is well-established principle of law that the date of birth mentioned in service book is a conclusive date of birth and as per FR 84, the same can be changed only in case of any clerical mistake. The petitioner has filed a copy of his service book from which, it is clear that there is no clerical mistake in the date of birth mentioned in the service book. Further, the petition suffers from delay and laches. It is well-established principle of law that a petition for correction of date of birth in the service book is not maintainable at the fag end of service. However, in the present case, the petition has been filed after two years of retirement.
4. Considered the submissions made by the counsel for the parties.
5. The Supreme Court in the case of State of Assam v. Daksha Prasad Deka, reported in MANU/SC/0490/1970 : (1970) 3 SCC 624 has held as under:--
4. ......... A public servant may dispute the date of birth as entered in the service record and may apply for correction of the record. But until the record is corrected he cannot claim that he has been deprived of the guarantee under Article 311(2) of the Constitution by being compulsorily retired on attaining the age of superannuation on the footing of the date of the birth entered in the service record.
6. The Supreme Court in the case of State of Maharashtra v. Gorakhnath Sitaram Kamble, reported in MANU/SC/1141/2010 : (2010) 14 SCC 423 has held as under:
14. In State of T.N. v. T.V. Venugopalan this Court was clearly of the opinion that the government servant should not be permitted to correct the date of birth at the fag end of his service career. The Court, in very strong terms, observed as under: (SCC p. 307, para 7)
"7. The government servant having declared his date of birth as entered in the service register to be correct, would not be permitted at the fag end of his service career to raise a dispute as regards the correctness of the entries in the service register. It is common phenomenon........