Change of date of birth in Government service 8 years after joining

[Anonymous]

I had joined the Government service in the department of posts in 2009 (about 8 years back). I was born in a small village and my parents were illiterate. On checking records, now I have come to know that my age was shown in records by 2 years more. That is, in records, my age was shown as 24 years at the time of joining service in 2009, but my actual age was only 22 years at that time. I have proof of the actual age from the Government hospital of the tehsil headquarters in which my village is located. How can I get my date of birth changed in my service records with the Government?

[Dr. Ashok Dhamija]

In the face of the facts stated by you, it is very difficult now for you to get your date of birth corrected in the Government records. This is so because the guidelines would not permit correction of date of birth after 5 years of joining the service, and you have already completed 8 years of service. The only possibility could be to go the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and try your best, explaining why there is a delay in making a request for change of date of birth, though I must caution you that there is little chance of success in CAT also. However, before you approach CAT, you should first make a formal request to the Government or the competent authority to changing the date of birth in your service records. Over all, the chance of success in the getting the date of birth corrected at this stage is very little in your case.

It is pertinent to point out that as per the existing Government guidelines, an alteration of date of birth of a Government servant can be made, with the sanction of a Ministry or Department of the Central Government, if —

(a) a request in this regard is made within five years of his entry into Government service;

(b) it is clearly established that a genuine bona fide mistake has occurred; and

(c) the date of birth so altered would not make him ineligible to appear in any School or University of Union Public Service Commission examination in which he had appeared, or for entry into Government service on the date on which he first appeared at such examination or on the date on which he entered Government service.

In this regard, it is pertinent to point out that in the case of Union of India v. Harnam Singh, (1993) 2 SCC 162 : AIR 1993 SC 1367, the Supreme Court observed as under:

“A Government servant, after entry into service, acquires the right to continue in service till the age of retirement, as fixed by the State in exercise of its powers regulating conditions of service, unless the services are dispensed with on other grounds contained in the relevant service rules after following the procedure prescribed therein. The date of birth entered in the service records of a civil servant is, thus of utmost importance for the reason that the right to continue in service stands decided by its entry in the service record. A Government servant who has declared his age at the initial stage of the employment is, of course, not precluded from making a request later on for correcting his age. It is 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 period of limitation prescribed for seeking correction of date of birth, the Government servant must do so without any unreasonable delay. In the absence of any provision in the rules for correction of date of birth, the general principle of refusing relief on grounds of laches or stale claims, is generally applied by the courts and tribunals. It is nonetheless competent for the Government to fix a time-limit, in the service rules, after which no application for correction of date of birth of a Government servant can be entertained. A Government servant who makes an application for correction of date of birth beyond the time, so fixed, therefore, cannot claim, as a matter of right, the correction of his date of birth even if he has good evidence to establish that the recorded date of birth is clearly erroneous. The law of limitation may operate harshly but it has to be applied with all its rigour and the courts or tribunals cannot come to the aid of those who sleep over their rights and allow the period of limitation to expire. Unless altered, his date of birth as recorded would determine his date of superannuation even if it amounts to abridging his right to continue in service on the basis of his actual age.”

“…Note 5 to FR 56(m) was incorporated only in 1979 and it provides for request to be made for correction of date of birth within five years from the date of entry into service but what is necessary to be examined is the intention of the rule-making authority in providing the period of limitation for seeking the correction of the date of birth of the Government servant viz. to discourage stale claims and belated applications for alteration of date of birth recorded in the service-book at the time of initial entry. It is the duty of the courts and tribunals to promote that intention by an intelligible and harmonious interpretation of the rule rather than choke its operation. The interpretation has to be the one which advances the intention and not the one which frustrates it. It could not be the intention of the rule-making authority to give unlimited time to seek correction of date of birth, after 1979, to those Government servants who had joined the service prior to 1979 but restrict it to the five year period for those who enter service after 1979. Indeed, if a Government servant, already in service for a long time, had applied for correction of date of birth before 1979, it would not be permissible to non-suit him on the ground that he had not applied for correction within five years of his entry into service, but the case of Government servant who applied for correction of date of birth only after 1979 stands on a different footing. It would be appropriate and in tune with harmonious construction of the provision to hold that in the case of those Government servants who were already in service before 1979, for a period of more than five years, and who intended to have their date of birth corrected after 1979, may seek the correction of date of birth within a reasonable time after 1979 but in any event not later than five years after the coming into force of the amendment in 1979. This view would be in consonance with the intention of the rule-making authority.”

In view of these reasons, it is very difficult now for you to get your date of birth corrected in the Government records, since it is beyond the time limitation fixed by the Government for this purpose.

     

---

Dr. Ashok Dhamija is a New Delhi based Supreme Court Advocate and author of law books. Read more about him by clicking here. List of his Forum Replies. List of his other articles. List of his Quora Answers. List of his YouTube Videos.

[Author]

Posts