The State of Haryana and others vs Chander Singh alias Chander Bhan

S.S. Sodhi, J.—The matter here concerns change in the date of birth of a government servant, well beyond the period of two years since the date of his joining government service. The point at issue being-whether in view of the provisions of Rule 7.3 of the Punjab Financial Rules, Volume-I, such correction was warranted? The said rule is in the following terms:-

Every person newly appointed to a service or a post under Government should at the time of appointment declare the date of his birth by the Christian era with confirmatory evidence as far as possible, confirmatory documentary evidence such as Matriculation certificate, Municipal birth certificate and so on. If the exact date is not known an approximate date may be given. The actual date or the assumed date determined under note 2 below should be recorded in the History of Service, Service Book, or any other record that may be kept in respect of the Government Servant''s service under government and once recorded, it cannot be altered except in the case of a clerical''s error, without the previous orders of Government.

Annexure A:

In regard to the date of birth a declaration of age made at the time of, or for the purpose of entry into Government service, shall as against the Government servant in question, be deemed to be conclusive unless he applies for correction of his age as recorded within two years from the date of his entry into government service. Government, however, reserves the right to make a correction in the recorded age of a Government servant at any time against the interest of that Government servant when it is satisfied that the age recorded in his service book or in the History of service of a gazetted Government servant is incorrect and has been incorrectly recorded with the object that the Government servant may derive some unfair advantage there from.

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When a Government servant, within the period allowed makes an application or the correction of his date of birth as recorded, a special enquiry should be held to ascertain his correct age and reference should be made to all available sources of information such as certified copies of entries in the Municipal birth register, University or School age certificates, Janam Patris or horoscopes. It should, however, be remembered that it is entirely discretionary on the part of the sanctioning authority to refuse or grant such applications and no alteration should be allowed unless it has satisfactorily been proved that the date of birth as originally given by the applicant was a bona fide mistake and that he has drived no unfair advantage therefrom.

The record shows that the plaintiff-Chander Singh joined service as Naib Tehsildar on October 1, 1955. His date of birth, as mentioned by him, at that time, being November 15, 1931, which was incidently the date as recorded in his Matriculation Certificate. Later, he was admitted to the Haryana Civil Service on March 12, 1974. On that occasion too be gave his date of birth to be November 15, 1931.

According to the plaintiff, it was in the year 1982 when on the death of his wife, the question of his re-marriage arose that he was told by his mother that he was 46 or 47 years old at that time. On verification from the office of the Chief Medical Officer, Sonepat, he discovered that this correct date of birth was September 6, 1935. The error regarding his date of birth had been committed by his father at the time of his admission in school where his date of birth came to be mentioned by him as November 15, 1931. Further, it was his plea that at the time of his birth, he was given the name Chander Bhan-a name by which he claims, he is still called by his mother, but his father happened to get his name recorded as Chander Singh in the school record and that is how this name thereafter stuck.

It is the consistent finding of both the courts below that the date of birth of the plaintiff was indeed September 6, 1985 and he was consequently granted the decree for declaration as sought by him.

In appeal here, the judgment and decree of the lower appellate court was sought to be assailed on the ground that the courts below had erred in coming to the conclusion that the plaintiff was in fact born on September 6, 1935 and not on the date as mentioned in the Matriculation Certificate namely, November 15, 1931. Great stress, in this behalf being placed upon the fact that it was at a very belated stage that the plaintiff had woken up to realise that his date of birth had not been correctly mentioned by him in his service record and further that the birth entry, on the basis of which, the plaintiff''s case was founded, mentions Chander Bhan as the child to which it pertained, whereas the name of the plaintiff was Chander Singh. Weighty though, these aspects undoubtedly ate, but it must be appreciated that the points raised are essentially matters of appreciation of evidence which cannot, therefore, be agitated in Second Appeal. Further, both the courts below have duly taken note of them in arriving at the finding in favour of the plaintiff.

The main thrust of the argument of Mr. N.K. Kapur appearing for the Advocate-General Haryana was founded upon the provisions of rule 7.3 of the Punjab Financial Rules, Volume I, namely; that the date of birth of the government servants cannot be altered after more than two years from the date of his entry into government service. The answer to this is however, provided by the judgment of this Court in Hari Parshad Handa v. The State of Punjab (1985-1) 87 P.L.R. 39, where it was observed:-

The statement regarding the date of birth made by the employee is based upon his belief and not his personal knowledge. From further information it would always be open to him to show that the statement made was incorrect and his date of birth was in fact different from the one earlier stated by him. However, if he has entered into the service fradulently by mis-stating his date of birth the question of estoppel would arise and the would be debarred from challenging the correctness of his date of birth. For instance, a man may not be of age to enter a particular service but by wrongly giving his age he may secure employment. Later on, he would certainly be estopped from saying that he was of a younger age than the one stated by him at the time of his entry into service. Short of such a fraud or mis-representation there is no rule of estoppel which would debar him from claiming and proving that the date of birth earlier given at the time of his entry into service was not the correct one.

A similar view was also recently expressed in R.S.A. 2564 of 1987 (State of Punjab v. Jaswant Singh R.S.A. 2564 of 1987) decided on May 25, 1988.

Further, in dealing with this matter, it must be mentioned that by giving his date of birth to be November 15, 1931, the plaintiff had not in any manner gained for himself a benefit which he was otherwise not entitled to, inasmuch as, he would have been eligible for appointment as Naib Tehsildar on the date he joined service whether his date of birth was November 15, 1931 or September 6, 1935. He thus earned no undue benefit in securing service by mentioning his date of birth to be in the year 1931. Similarly, no such undue benefit was acquired by him by his entry in the Haryana Civil Service. There thus being no fraud or mis-representation as alluded to in Hari Parshad Honda''s case (supra), no exception can be taken to the judgment and decree of the lower appellate Court granting to the plaintiff the relief claimed.

This appeal is according hereby dismissed. There will, however, be no order as to costs.