Correction of Date of Birth In Service Records Cannot Be Claimed As A Matter Of Right: Kerala High Court

The respondent entered into service as an Engineering Assistant on 07.11.1989. At the time of appointment, the date of birth entered in service records was 01.06.1964. This was as per his SSLC book. But later on 10.04.2007, the respondent claimed, he came to know his actual date of birth is 02.07.1964. He thereafter, approached the State Government for correction of date of birth in SSLC records which was accepted on 27.06.2007. Later, as per the respondent, the entries in his SSLC book were corrected as per the order dated 13.01.2012.

Soon after that, the respondent on 16.07.2013, gave a representation to the Director of All India Radio, Vazhuthacaud. It was replied on 05.08.2013 that the said correction cannot be made. The reply stated that as per an Official Memorandum of the Department of Personnel and Training, no request for correction in date of birth can be made after 5 years of entry into the service. Later, after inter-departmental communications, it was confirmed by a letter dated 04.02.2015 that the application for correction was rejected.

On 06.05.2015, the respondent was ordered to register himself in the bio-metric attendance system. To this, the respondent replied that his application for correction of date of birth in the service records is still pending and the date of birth in the Aadhar Card and other related documents were corrected. The respondent in the meantime made a request through the mechanism provided for public grievance which was also rejected by an order dated 04.08.2022. Immediately after this order, the applicant approached the Central Administrative Tribunal.

At the outset, the Court observed that the Tribunal should not have entertained the Application as it was filed beyond the period of limitation given in Section 21 of the Central Administrative Tribunal Act. The respondent in his original application had claimed that the petition was filed within the limitation period, by calculating the period of limitation from the order dated 04.08.2022.

High Court held that the cause of action occurred on 04.02.2015, when the request for correction of date of birth was declined. The order on 04.08.2022 declined the respondent's request to accept the Aadhar Card with the corrected date of birth for the purpose of registering himself in the bio-metric attendance. This was not related to the correction of the date of birth in the service record.

The respondent had argued that he had applied for correction of date of birth in 2007 and the order was passed only in 2012. He pleaded that he cannot be held responsible for this delay. High Court held that even if this period is excluded, the authorities could not have entertained the respondent's request. It was beyond the five-year period mentioned in the Official Memorandum.

Then the court observed that the settled law is that the correction of date of birth cannot be claimed as a matter of right. The Court relied on State of UP v Shiv Narain Upadhya where it was held that the Court should not deal with an application for correction of date of birth. An order for correction of date of birth has a chain reaction, affecting others below him waiting for their promotion. Other than that, it is also a burden on the exchequer.

The Kerala High Court in Ravindran v State of Kerala had held that the Government servant cannot apply for correction of date of birth beyond the stipulated period. Even if there was no provision regarding the correction of date of birth, Courts and Tribunals generally apply the general principle of refusing stale claims. The High relied on a number of Supreme Court decisions which held that a request by an employee for correction of date of birth made at the fag end of his career cannot be entertained.

The Court however added that there are exceptions. If there is clinching proof that the date of birth of the employee was wrongly entered in the service records and denial of permission to correct it would amount to a denial of justice, the courts have allowed such correction. In this case, the Court held, the statutory embargo of 5 years is not open to review.

“It becomes evident that there was a statutory embargo to apply for correction of date of birth beyond 5 years. The prudency of the employer is prescribing the said embargo being sacrosanct and is not open for judicial review by courts.”

The Court added that the Tribunal by entertaining the Application at the fag end of respondent's career had completely ignored the settled principles of law. The Appeal was allowed.

Counsel for Petitioner: SCGC R. V. Sreejith

Counsel for Respondents: Advocates M. P. Krishnan Nair, Seema Krishnan, T. D. Susmith Kumar

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw Ker 324

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