1 1164.10 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION WRIT PETITION NO.1164 OF 2010 Ranganath Tukaram Ilag ...Petitioner Versus BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation ...Respondent ...... Mr.Pravin Patel for Petitioner. Ms.V.S.Gharapure for Respondent. ...... CORAM:- A.M.KHANWILKAR AND MRS.MRIDULA BHATKAR, JJ. DATED:- MARCH 23, 2011. P.C. 1. Heard Counsel for the parties. 2. The challenge in this Petition is to the rejection of petitioner’s request for change of birth date in his service record. It is not in dispute that the petitioner entered service in the year 1981. At the relevant time, he declared his date of birth as 1st June, 1953. In support of the said birth date, the petitioner had relied on contemporaneous record. Accordingly, the service record mentions the date of birth of the petitioner as 1st June, 1953. However, for the first time, on 14th August, 2002 the petitioner made representation in writing to the Chief Accountant, M.C.G.M. stating that the date of birth entered in the service record is incorrect and his real date of 2 1164.10 birth was 18th December, 1954 which is reinforced from the Birth and Death Register maintained by the concerned Tahsildar, Taluka Sinnar. In this communication dated 14th August, 2002, it is further stated that the mistake had occurred while entering the birth date in the school record which was given on oral inquiry by teacher. However, the said representation does not specify as to when the petitioner realised the said mistake. The same position appears from the Memo of Writ Petition. There is no clear assertion in the Petition that the petitioner realised about the mistake only in August, 2002, for which reason, made representation on 14th August, 2002. The fact that the petitioner has thereafter made successive representations to other authorities does not take the matter any further. 3. As aforesaid, the petitioner entered service as back as in the year 1981. No tangible reason is forthcoming as to what prevented the petitioner to make such representation immediately after entering service. A vague assertion is made in para 10 of the petition that the petitioner was pursuing with the concerned authority for changing his date of birth in the service record and since that did not happen, he eventually forwarded written representations. The claim of the petitioner will have to be also rejected on 3 1164.10 the ground that after the petitioner entered service in 1981, the Corporation issued circular dated 10th March, 1986 calling upon its Officers and staff to immediately submit representation for change of date of birth, if any, on or before 15th September, 1986. The petitioner obviously did not avail of the said remedy. At least no such assertion is made in the Petition. As a matter of fact, the period for making such representation was extended inspite of the earlier administrative instructions issued by the Department vide Circular dated 16th October, 1978. 4. Taking any view of the matter, no indulgence can be shown to the petitioner having failed to avail of the said opportunity and more so, because no explanation is offered in the Petition as to why petitioner made such representation for the first time only on 14th August, 2002. Counsel for the petitioner, however, relies on the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of CIDCO v. Vasudha Gorakhnath Mandevlekar reported on 2010 (1) Mh.L.J. 41. This decision is of no avail to the petitioner. The principle expounded by the Apex Court in this decision is that the Certificate issued by Municipality cannot be discarded on the ground that employee’s birth took place prior to creation of municipality. In the fact situation of the present case, however, what appears to us is that the petitioner did not take 4 1164.10 recourse to remedy of correction of date of birth inspite of the Circular issued by the Corporation on 16th October, 1978 and dated 10th March, 1986. No reason is forthcoming as to why petitioner made representation only on 14th August, 2002 when he entered service as back as in 1981. Accordingly, this Petition fails. The same is dismissed. (MRS.MRIDULA BHATKAR, J.) (A.M.KHANWILKAR, J.)