Wednesday, May 2, 2018

HC backs official’s demand for change in date of birth 

Special Correspondent   THE HINDU

 
CHENNAI, May 02, 2018 00:00 IST


‘Genuine request backed by valid proof should be entertained’

When a public servant demands correction of date of birth in service register neither at the fag end of his/her career nor in anticipation of any promotion and if the claim is supported by impeccable public documents, courts must be inclined to consider the request favourably, the Madras High Court has said.

Justice S. Vimala made the observation while allowing a writ petition filed by IPS officer M.T. Ganesamoorthy. The petition had been filed in 2014 seeking a direction to the Home Secretary and the Director General of Police to alter his date of birth from October 20, 1961 to October 10, 1962 in the service records on the basis of his birth certificate.

In 2007, a civil suit filed by him was dismissed by a lower court prompting him to file the present writ petition. Allowing the writ, Justice Vimala said the civil court decree should be considered as void and non-existent since the issue raised by the petitioner ought to have been considered only by an administrative tribunal.

In so far as the reasons adduced by the Home Secretary for rejecting the petitioner’s plea was concerned, the judge said the rejection based on the provisions of All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules of 1958 was not correct since those rules would not be applicable to the petitioner who had been recruited by the TNPSC.

Though the government had stated that the petitioner’s father was a Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies and such a learned person could not have given a wrong date of birth while admitting his son in school, the judge said the officials had failed to take note that it was his illiterate mother who had reportedly given the wrong date of birth.

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